My Kryptonite
by Wildflame
Summary: Complete: Just as everyone starts to settle down, Eggman rears his ugly head...again. And why does it seem like everyone is worried about Sonic's love life? Now, what happens when he falls for someone he never expected? SonicxShadow, one sided AmySonic
1. Just the Beginning

**_Chapter 1_**

**_Just the Beginning_**

Disclaimer: ...I don't own anything, namely Sonic games, so ...BYE.

Hm, to be honest, I just started writing, if this turns out to be yaoi...I'm not usually like this...it's just the storyline I was thinking of goes along with it...not that I'm every for this kind of stuff...I'm just in a strange mood...whatever.

* * *

"Not necessarily." Was all he said in response. Tails eyed the blue hedgehog evilly, he was sick to death of Sonic being so unresponsive. His tails twitched something of intently, though it was hard for two yellow-orange tails to look intimidating, thus his green-eyed friend laughed.

"You can't just crush her...don't you care?" Sonic paced back and forth, listening to Tails' repetitive lecture. Finally, he sat down and shook his head. He had no answers for himself, let alone Tails. The one thing he could figure out was that he didn't love Amy. She was pretty and probably the nicest girl he'd ever met, but he couldn't bring himself to lead her on anymore. He hadn't thought he had been in the first place, but obviously he was wrong.

"You're not being fair, Tails! I can't pretend to love her! I don't! That's it! I do care about her! She's a good friend of mine and I would never intentionally hurt her feelings! So, for the love of God, back 'off'!" Sonic stood and snarled at the fox, narrowing his green eyes he stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Tails fell on to the brown couch, he stared at the slammed door for a long time. He knew Sonic wouldn't be back, he never came back. He sighed and leaned back in the couch.

Sonic kicked up dirt as he walked away from Tails' little clubhouse thing, he shook his head, muttering curse words incoherently to himself. He eyed the ground for the majority of the time, but he looked up on the occasion to as he didn't slam in to a tree. "What's bothering you, Faker?" Sonic jerked his head up at the sound of the cocky voice.

He whirled, raising an eyebrow in Shadow's direction. "Nothing that you should be worrying about, what are you even doing here?" He crossed his arms, turning completely to see that Shadow was actually up in a tree, standing on it, smirking as usual.

"Hn, shut up, Sonic...I'm certainly 'not' worrying about it, it just seemed rather odd that you were walking in a straight line, dragging your feet, mumbling to yourself." He scowled in Sonic's direction, a skeptical look appearing across his face. He was probably the only person who wouldn't automatically say it was Amy's or Tails' fault. Sonic just laughed and shook his head.

"Get down here, I'm not hollering out to you while you're up in a tree." Shadow shrugged and complied, hitting the ground, this time the look in his eyes somewhat curious.

"Fine, I'm not up in the tree anymore...now, what were you muttering about?"

"Amy...you know, girl-problems...something you'll never have?" He grinned at Shadow's annoyed expression as he said this, "Tails doesn't want me to hurt her feelings and I don't like ...I mean, she's sweet and everything but I don't."

"For your information, I do have girl problems...so don't be stupid." He cocked his head to the side, "But hey, if you don't like her...that is not your fault...he doesn't have a right to yell at you...I mean, maybe because you're a complete loser, but not over that."

"You're hilarious." Sarcasm dripped from his voice. He turned, disregarding the mean portion of the comment and focusing on the part he actually agreed with. "I know, I don't wanna upset her either...but still."

"She'll live, Faker. Just hang in there." He laughed then shook his head and warped before giving Sonic a change to respond again.

Sonic smiled, "Thanks, a lot."

---

"Hey! Sonic!" Sonic jumped up, seeing Tails blue Tornado flying at him, he got out of the way instinctively, as Tails' flying the aircraft usually resulted in crashing. He landed smoothly this time though, "Are you still mad at me?" Sonic just shook his head.

"Then, guess who's back?" Sonic seemed curious enough.

"C'mon, Sonic! Doctor Robotnick!" Sonic snarled.

"Aw, gah, he has the 'worst' timing." Tails nodded, then his tails swayed a little bit as he stepped back toward the Tornado and dug through it for no more than five seconds before emerging from the junk in the back of it, triumphant.

"Here we are!" He held a metallic device in his hand, he pressed the button, which quickly follow by the nothing more than cliche Eggman telling them that he was going to kill them 'blah, blah, blah.' The only nonsense that stuck out to Sonic was that he only had one chaos emerald. Sonic laughed at this, who really cared? What could Eggman possibly do with one single emerald.

"Well, I think this is more pathetic than anything he's ever tried!" Sonic rolled his eyes and kicked the hologram machine, sending it rolling across the ground, Knuckles head popped up right in its path, as went his luck.

"Ow, hey!" Tails smiled as he realized who it was.

"Hey, Knuckles...what are you doing here?" Sonic smirked watching Knuckles move his hand back for forth over the place the hologram projector had hit him. "...oh yeah right, like your skull isn't strong enough to withstand a little two inch gadget." Knuckles glared over at Sonic and pulled himself fully from the ground.

"I'm here because Tails told me he wanted to show me something, so shut your trap, Sonic!" He made a face as Sonic just laughed and shook his head at him.

"It's just Eggman being his usual idiotic self!" Knuckles made a face, and sat down.

"Oh, is that all?" Tails nodded as Knuckles looked to him for confirmation. "Since that stupid incident with Black Doom and Shadow, nothing exciting except Eggman's empty threats has happened."

"Are you sure you'd want something else to happen, Knuckles?" Knuckles looked over to Rouge immediately recognizing the close to seductive voice. He shrugged his shoulders at her after a moment, thinking about it more seriously.

"...who all did you tell about this, Tails?" Sonic shook his head, "I told you, don't run and tell everyone as soon as Eggman make a move...it's stupid because he's nothing but a bumbling nuisance."

"Sorry..." Tails looked down.

"Hey, where's Shadow? He told me he'd be here just to laugh at Tails for blowing everything out of proportion again." The bat woman, put her hand on her hip looking around.

"You know, Rouge...you always wanna know where Shadow is."

"That bother you, Knuckles?" Knuckles felt his cheek burn, as he shook his head, staring hard at the ground from the unexpected comeback. Sonic laughed at the two of them.

"Well, Shadow tends to never show up when Tails tells him to be here, I think it's his way of showing he's not part of this little 'group'." He rolled his eyes, "He's so damned idiotic about stuff like that, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah...but, it's kind of cute in it's own little way." Rouge smirked and stared at Knuckles for an annoyed reaction, which she got.

"Heh, not my place to pass judgement on that one, Rouge." Sonic looked over to Tails after the comment, "You didn't tell Amy, I'm guessing?"

"Oh, well, yeah, I told her too, she wasn't home though, so I had to leave a message...sorry for telling everyone, but it seems like the only time we all see each other is when it has to do with Eggman...so I thought this would be a good opportunity."

"Right." Knuckles mumbled, "Eggman's always good for some good get-together times."

"Or for making completely useless inventions."

"Heh...right...juust like his grandfather."

"Cute, faker." Rouge smiled at the two of them, they always seemed to be arguing, but never fighting, they were really weird.

"Hey, Shadow, so you did come!" Tails waved happily at Shadow, who was now standing opposite of the little circle the seemed to have formed.

"Yeah, but only to bug you about being a complete moron, Tails." Knuckles laughed at the comment, though an intense dislike for Rouge's seeming feelings for Shadow was starting to bug him about this particular hedgehog.

Tails pouted, "One time, I think Eggman's going to trick us all, and do something seriously dangerous!"

"...one time...I'm sure." Sonic just muttered the phrase sarcastically, blowing Tails off yet again.

"So, Shadow, any luck with the chaos emeralds? Didn't you say something about looking for them?" Rouge cocked her head in Shadow's direction, waiting for the reply.

Shadow nodded, "Yeah, but leave it to the doctor to get one and screw everything I'm trying to do up...so I do have one, just so I can use chaos control, but that's about the sum of it." Sonic laughed at that.

"Heyy, you guys!"

"It's Amy." Tails smiled and waved at her as she ran towards the five of them, a smile on her face, looking like a girl does when she just gets back from shopping.

"Wow, I didn't expect all of you to be here...what's going on? Is it important?"

"No." Shadow immediately shot down her enthusiasm.

"Well, thanks, Shadow." She made a face at him and shook her head, "...so, you didn't exactly tell me why you called Tails...so what's up?"

"It's nothing really, just a stupid little message from Eggman."

"So truthfully this little meeting is completely pointless, which is why I'm questioning my common sense for why I'm still standing here." Amy giggled at Shadow's comment this time.

"You've got a point there, Shadow...I think I'm about to split too..." Knuckles turned to go when he was interrupted by Sonic's voice.

"On second thought, maybe ya outta stick around for a 'few' more minutes, guys." He was speaking to Shadow and Knuckles but his eyes were set on the sky, as the remainder of them noticed a shadow over taking the area, the familiar ship, complete with red and orange coloring, and hideous face on the side.

"Well, if it isn't the doctor, himself, guess he decided to see if maybe attacking us earlier would get him somewhere." Rouge shook her head at the ship.

"Hey, what's–...?" Amy was cut off by a loud booming explosion, "...what!" The fire from it came from the side facing them, obviously the work of a hole being burned through it. A bright light shot from the hole, looking like a shooting star of sorts.

"Now this could be interesting." Suddenly the ship headed towards the ground, away from them, but towards the ground none the least. Knuckles jerked his head back, "Wow, that thing's gaining velocity fast!" He took a step back as he was the closest to the obvious place where the ship was going to crash.

Honestly, there was no seemingly slow motion as the ship slammed hard into the ground, the resulting shockwave knocking them off their feet. Though, shortly after a mechanical sound could be heard, that of a launching weapon. "Preparing harpoons."

"Har-what? What did it say?" Amy seemed confused, though as she took a step forward Sonic grabbed her arm and pulled her back. The ship was obviously in something of working order because the harpoons launched in all different directions, as if this was some kind of defense again crashing.

An annoyed gasp escaped the green-eyed hedgehog as the large point slashed his arm, luckily enough for him doing nothing more than leaving a deep gash. "Goddammit..." He stumbled away from the direct impact of the spear-like object.

"Sonic, are you okay?" Amy seemed worried as usual, but that was to be expected by her. Rouge also let on a little concern, as she raised her hand to her mouth to cover her shock.

"You think Eggman did that on purpose?" Knuckles looked over to the now sparking ship, disagreeing with his own suggestion, but putting it up in the air for the rest of them.

Shadow grabbed Sonic's wound, turning the hedgehog back towards him, a wince and a gasp through gritted teeth following, surprisingly enough though, Shadow did get slightly gentler with the cut. The grip loosened as he pulled Sonic towards him, "Stop it, Sonic...are you okay!"

"Yeah, are you hurt?" Amy walked over there, putting her hands on his shoulder.

Sonic looked in Shadow's direction for a moment, noticing the black hedgehog was looking at his wounded shoulder now, he looked towards Amy after that. "No, I'm fine."

Rouge shook her head, "Nah, Knuckles, he's not that smart...hey, where'd Tails go?"

Shadow let Amy take it from there, whirling at the question, "Yeah, where did the little fox go?" He let his eyes wander around for a moment, finding nothing.

"I'm over here, guys!" Tails pulled Eggman from the rubble, who was obviously intensely angry that his plan had been foiled once again.

"That damned metallic hedgehog has meddled with me for the last time, I'm going to find that creature and destroy it!" He slammed his fist into the rubble of his crashed ship, which then resulting in him withdrawing his fist and saying "ow" numerous times.

"Mecha giving you some trouble again, Doctor?" Shadow smirked at the doctor as he just scowling at the remark. Tails just smiled reassuringly.

"What happened?" Tails brought Eggman over to the rest of them, Sonic reassuring Amy continuously that he was perfectly fine.

"I was using a chaos emerald to engineer my ships inside, but as soon as it got fully operational, it somehow activated Metal Sonic and he took the emerald and took off, destroying my ship while he was at it!" Sonic laughed at him.

"You can't even control your own creations, Eggman...gimme a break!"

"Quiet, Sonic! You would not have been able to stop him either!"

"Riight...just like I'm 'never' able to stop you." He smirked, giving Eggman a skeptical look then turning in the direction that Metal Sonic went. "Well, Knuckles, we might have gotten that little exciting thing you were talking about, now."

"I really gotta start listening to Rouge more!" Knuckles just shook his head as Rouge nodded in agreement, staring off in the same direction as Sonic.

"Guess we better go track him down and get rid of him before he causes any more havoc than he probably already has, huh, guys?" Rouge looked back at everyone, "However, doctor, you may just want to cool it here, as your experiences with him haven't been to successful."

Shadow laughed, "Yeah..."

Eggman glared, "I'll go find him on my own time, and then I'll get control and kill all of you with him, and take over the world at last! You'll all see." He ran off, not very fast though, considering his size.

"...I feel sorry for that guy sometimes." Tails shook his head.

"Excuse me while I resist the urge to say something lame and stupid about teamwork...hold on, gotta concentrate." Sonic sat down, obviously deeply fighting this little need to be lame.

Shadow laughed at him, "Resist it, Faker, and my opinion of you will definitely go up." He looked over to Rouge now, "Okay...you had a good idea about finding the stupid trash compactor...any ideas where he would go though?"

"Probably to get the rest of the chaos emerald, and the easiest one to get would probably be..."

"...at my house, yeah, yeah." Tails just pouted at Rouge as she looked at him after he said this comment, she actually agreed that he was right.

"I was gonna say in Central City, but yeah, your house is probably the easiest...so let's go there." Using the wings she had, she easily carried herself off the ground. "Here we go."

"C'mon, Shadow...up for a little friendly competition?" He smirked at Shadow, as he lowered the emerald he was about to use chaos control with.

"You're so immature, Sonic...all you ever wanna do it race..." Shadow then proceeded to take off, leaving Sonic rather stunned. He stared after him for a moment, the quickly followed, now angry at Shadow for fooling him in that manner.

"Shadow! You cheater! Now, who's immature!" He made a face, but continued trying to keep up, as throwing away a race was definitely not in his nature, but the odds of him catching were definitely not good,

---

Sonic made a face, pulling back skeptically, "Tails is gonna be really mad." Rouge, Shadow and Sonic were all staring at the remainder of what used to be Tails' house. More than half of it was basically demolished, and Sonic stared at the ground after a moment.

"Guess we should have given Mecha a little more credit for speed, huh?" Rouge put her hands on her hips, "Well if we keep going like this we aren't ever going to catch up to him...he's probably gotten the emerald from Central City by now...I forgot how fast he was going!"

"Take it easy, Rouge...remember? I have an emerald." Rouge looked at Shadow, now relieved.

"That's right! So, we'll have to run into him eventually, unfortunately, he's probably going to do a lot of damage before he needs the last one, so we gotta find some means of catching up with him."

Shadow just looked at Sonic for a moment, "You idiots are really good at underestimating the emeralds and me, aren't you?"

Sonic grinned, "...whatever, Shadow...just go catch up with him."

"Fine, but you got any lame phrases for me before I go?"

"Grah! Shadow, just go, before I do find something to say to you, and trust me, it's not going to be rated G." He smirked and urged Shadow on.

"Ooh, be that way, then, Faker." He warped and Sonic just stood there for a moment.

"Well, I'm going to go to Central City...I might as well see if Mecha has made it there and if he has...I can see what I can do to help with the damage, right?" Rouge held up her hand for a moment.

"Hold it there, hotshot...now, can you please tell me why you wanna hurt Amy's feelings so badly?" Sonic growled at her.

"I don't want to hurt her feelings! I like Amy a lot but as a friend, I don't love her and I'm never going to...so, why don't all of you just get off my back about it, okay?" Rouge sighed.

"Sonic, you always get so defensive about this...I don't understand you in the least...you know...I just want an explanation, but I didn't word it right, okay? I'll give you that...why? Why don't you like Amy?"

He just growled again, "I don't know...my heart's not in it and there is no point in leading her on...I'm going to tell her soon and that's it, okay? So, you, Tails and whoever else who plans on "talking" to me about this...just go the hell away!"

Rouge just shrugged, "You're never going to find a mate if this is how you're going to look at it...you know that, don't you?" She smirked at him, as he just looked completely exasperated with the idea.

"Why don't you go tell Knuckles you like him, or what about Shadow?" Sonic glared at her, seriously angry at the moment.

"...what about Shadow, Sonic?" She put her hands on her hips and looked straight into his green eyes, he seemed genuinely confused on the question though.

"...gimme a break, Rouge...'WHAT' are you suggesting?" Rouge laughed.

"If you don't know what I'm suggesting, why are you talking like you do?" She smiled at him, "I'm not implying anything, Sonic...I'm just saying you really have got to relax about Amy, before you go and blow her off, just give it a little time...give yourself a little time to mature, then see what you want."

He just glared at her, the anger not leaving in his voice, in spite of how nice she was trying to be about it, "Now you're going to call me immature? I'm plenty mature enough to make my own decisions."

"Hah! You don't even know if you like a guy or a girl...don't hand me that!"

Sonic got blood red at this comment, "I do 'not' like Shadow! You have really gotta be kidding me! That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life, Rouge!"

"I didn't say that, you said it, Sonic! You're the one talking absurdities."

Sonic clenched his fists, shutting his eyes and turning away from her, "...well, you know very well that you were implying it...so back off my personal feelings!" He looked back at her, exasperated, "And...stop implying that I'm gay!"

"You said that too, not me!"

"Stop saying that! You know very well I'm only saying it because it's what you're suggesting! It isn't my fault you're manipulative!" He put his hand to his forehead now, "You have got to be the damned most frustrating woman I have ever met!"

"Why thank you, Sonic!" He started to walk off, which was odd because normally when he was leaving he would run from the start.

"...but, why did you even suggest that in the first place, and don't say you didn't, because I know you did." He turned to her one last time, wanting a genuine answer, and she knew a smart-aleck remark wasn't going to cut it.

"Maybe it was because I think it's kind of cute, because I have a little crush on Shadow anyways...and I'm just a girl, you know? But, I don't know why I asked you, I can't really bring myself to ask him about stuff like that...because he's Shadow...and would most likely knock my head off...not that I didn't think you would, but any means...and you did, or you bit it off at least." She looked into two curious green eyes now, finally seeming to have let some of the anger go, "But, back there, when that stupid little...thing hit you...he got really worked up, I've never noticed him do that before...except when we were talking about Maria..."

Sonic made a face, "I don't think Shadow would ever let his mind-set go that way, nor would I, but I definitely don't like Amy...I think I do need to mature a little bit though, maybe I could like her, I don't think so...but maybe...and...well, I'll see you later, Rouge..._like Shadow? ...that...he...I can't be thinking like this!"_ This time he did leave running, which was completely normal.

* * *

Hm...guess it probably is going to be yaoi...I might just delete this story if I get out of this type of mood, but hey...I'm just a fangirl, who's ore mature than the typical fangirl. 


	2. Somewhere In the Sins of Time

_**Chapter 2**_

_**Somewhere in the Sins of Time**_

Disclaimer: I didn't own anything in chapter ONE, and I don't own anything NOW. So ha freakin ha. Wait, YOU should be laughing at ME!

Yeah, I'm kind of still in the mood. So, I'd better take advantage of that fact. I got a review and I'm seriously surprised, it's crazyyy. But, I can agree with it, because I 'want' to write this story, but then again I don't...but I am.

* * *

"You notice how...half of your house is missing?" Amy kicked up the dirt, making a face at Tails as the look on his face revealed that he was about to either cry, or just kill himself. 

"...no...nope, I just completely missed that concept!" Tails stared in Rouge's direction, not needing an explanation, but expecting one in sympathy. "Where are Sonic and Shadow?" Rouge smiled pleasantly at him.

"Sonic went to Central City to try and find Metal Sonic...and...Shadow just went to find Metal Sonic...but, I'm sorry about your house...I wouldn't suppose the chaos emerald would still be in there, right?"

"You know it's not, Rouge...I just don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do now!" His tails twitched furiously, but again, it didn't scare Amy or Rouge.

"You're just going to have to get over it, Tails...you can move in with Sonic or something, but we have bigger problems right now!" Amy put her hands on her hips and scowled at him for being selfish as she would put it.

"Oh, okay, and you wouldn't be upset if your house got blown in half!" Tails sighed, "But, I guess you're right..." He finally looked at the pink haired hedgehog, "Ohh, but when I find that metal scrap heap I'm gonna tear him apart! I'm make him think twice before knocking down Miles Tails Prower's house from now on!" He jumped up and started shadow-boxing.

"Calm down, there, Sparky." Rouge smirked then turned, "Well, I guess a good idea would be to go lend a helping hand to our two favorite hedgehogs." She began to walk away, leaving Amy and Tails to think about what she said and decide whether they agreed.

"Two favorite hedgehogs...yeah right...those two are more annoying than anything I've ever met." As if it was unexpected or something, Knuckles jumped from the ground in front of Rouge. Obviously he intended to go with her, from the position of his stance once he was out of the dirt.

"Heyy, don't say that!" Amy and Tails caught up with them, while Amy proceeded to defend the love of her life and Shadow.

Knuckles just rolled his eyes and ignored her, as was usually the only way to win an argument with the pink-haired nuisance sometimes. Though, now that Rouge had walked around him, he had to catch up with her again. "Yeah, let's walk! How awesome is that? We'll just walk there and by the time we're there, the fighting will be over and we'll miss everything! Just what do you think you're accomplishing by walking?" Rouge gave him that girl look that usually means to back off if you don't want to get slapped immediately afterwards. He took head of the look and did just that.

"You're right, Knuckle-head...and I don't really want to deal with you bad-mouthing me...so I'll see you later." Again, she proceeded to use her wings, which was odd because Knuckles usually never saw her flying anywhere, yet in the last five minutes she had used this skill twice. He guessed he just wasn't around her enough to know this was her basic way of travel.

He muttered annoyingly under his breath when she was out of hearing range though, "...you're still not gonna get there in time to help your little boyfriend." Amy caught up to him and unfortunately heard what he said.

"Little boyfriend?" She smirked, "Do you mean Shadow?" She giggled at the slight redness in his cheeks, barely noticeable with his coloring. "Aw, are you jealous of him? Don't worry, I'm sure Rouge likes you much better!"

"What!" Knuckles was taken aback by the attempt to comfort him for no reason, or so his outer pride was declaring, "I-I don't care if she likes him or not! Amy, don't look at me like that." He snarled at her, as the look in her eyes revealed she was about to mock him.

Tails just sat in the backdrop and stared at them, "Whatever guys...if you wanna go that way you do that...I'm just gonna hop in the Tornado and I'll see you when I see you." He smiled at them as they both turned around, embarrassed at their attempts to just walks away, the both started back in his direction.

---

Mecha stopped immediately, the fire of his boots keeping him in the air. The blue light in front of him surprised even him as he stared for a moment. "Okay, you annoying little trash compactor...give me back those three chaos emeralds...'now'."

Metal Sonic just stared at Shadow, the red light in his eyes lit up. The voice just as deep as the last time they had fought, except Mecha has been much bigger at that time, and Sonic was giving a lame speech on teamwork, and he was 'listening' for some reason. "Shadow...if you do not get out of the way, I will be forced to eliminate you."

"Hah!" Shadow rolled his eyes, and smirked after a moment, "C'mon, you piece of junk, like you wouldn't eliminate me when you got all the chaos emeralds anyway, so if you think you're little death warning is doing anything for me...you're wrong."

"You have made a good point; therefore, I will get you out of the way now." Shadow again scoffed at the threat, the smarter part of his mind knowing he could be in over his head, his pride assuring him he definitely was not.

"Bring it on, you piece of shit!"

"Affirmative." It was almost mockingly, as Shadow knew Mecha was in full capability of speaking in lay man's terms. Though, he figured it was a feeble attempt the trash heap was making to seem superior to everyone else.

Not about to underestimate the ability of Mecha's speed, nor his sense when it came to _not _staring blankly at your enemy for three to four minutes as the moment got "intense"; he ducked under a kick in his direction. He jerked up and slammed his elbow into the metallic surface of Metal Sonic's head. He had, on the other hand, underestimated the utter pain of slamming your bone into nothing but metal. He did manage to dent Mecha's face slightly, but he was almost positive he had simply shattered his elbow in the process. Metal Sonic, annoyed with the fact that he now had a dent in his forehead, or whatever you would call it on a metal creature of his sort, jumped up and in short moved the fight to the ground, by making Shadow get there first. "This may not end well." Shadow held his head where Metal Sonic had nailed him.

As he stood up, though it was a repetitive move, the fact that he saw six of the metal versions of Sonic helped his enemy land a second kick that sent him flying back through a few trees, though it did result in the first one snapping and falling on top of Mecha. Shadow staggered up after a moment, growling angrily, "This is ridiculous...he's metal...he's a goddamn machine." He gritted his teeth and proceeded to flare his own air skates after a moment, he took off in the direction of Metal Sonic, as he saw his opponent pushing the fallen tree off of itself, he jumped up this time. As he jumped his air skates turned off, obviously this was intentional though, as his facial expression remained unchanged. Mecha looked up in time to see the power of his shoes light back up in time to make a more forceful connection with his head. This time he was the one that went flying backwards, luckily for Shadow, though, no trees were in his immediate range, so unlike Mecha, he didn't get nailed with one.

To that same effect, Mecha didn't take the amount of damage Shadow had. "Prepare to be annihilated, Shadow the Hedgehog!"

---

Sonic stood in the middle of Central City, "Not too bad...I'm willing to make a bet that Mecha's been here, but for himself he didn't do too bad of damage to this city." Sonic sighed and just sat down on the curb, as the damage wasn't all that bad, there was no immediate reason for him to help out. Not to mention, the idiot people of this town probably thought he was the one that did it. Considering they seemed to believe anything slightly shorter than them and not a turtle was automatically him. He honestly believed a midget could run through the town causing chaos and destruction running up in people's faces and saying it was 'not' Sonic, and he, himself could be standing right next to them and they would all run in the midgets direction saying, 'OH MY GOSH IT'S SONIC!'.

He watched a little girl, probably about three or four beg her mother for a sucker she had obviously seen earlier. The mom was firm about saying no, but the girl started crying and the Mom gave in like most mothers had the tendency to do. He shook his head and stared down at the surface of the concrete street, mulling over his recent conversations. "Me and Amy are completely different...she really gets on my nerves a lot of the time! I know she means well, but she's constantly getting into trouble! And even if I did like her, she'd be put in even more danger. Why do these morons insist I have to have a mate of some sort! I've done fine up til now without one!"

"Sonic!" The familiar, high-pitched, almost squeal, of Cream's interrupted his train of thought. He flinched at the sound and looked up after a moment, the small orangish rabbit was running toward him with that blue chao on her shoulder, "Hey, Sonic! What are you doing here?" He was masking the fact that he would have liked to get up and sling the little creature across the town, that's what he was doing there.

"Hey, Cream...uh, I was...nothing really." He felt no need to involve her, as she really was never any help and she'd just get all worked up over nothing. She was only, what, like five, and she already annoyed him more than anyone he knew, except maybe Dr. Eggman and that wasn't saying anything really.

"I think I just saw Metal Sonic! I don't know what he was doing, but he seemed like he was in a hurry...and I saw Shadow too. So, don't think I'm going to buy that nothing stuff, tell me what's going on, Sonic!" Sonic really didn't want to tell her what was going on, but her voice was beginning to give him a severe headache.

"Yeah, Eggman somehow got Mecha started up again and now I guess he's looking for the chaos emeralds, I'm sure Shadow was just looking for him. It's nothing for you to concern yourself with Cream, you're really too young to get involved in our affairs like you do." He regretted saying this, as he always regretted saying how he really felt because it always wound up with someone crying, screaming or laughing their heads off assuring him that's 'not' how he _really _felt, since they all knew so much better than him. Cream's eyes welled up with tears, like they usually did when she got told she was "too young".

"I'm not too young! I can understand what you guys do better than most people, so you should try being a little nicer to me!" Her ears flopped down, and Cheese was doing something of trying to comfort her, but from Sonic's point of view it looked like he was trying to eat the side of her head. He didn't like the little chao either.

"Okay, okay...I'm sorry, I'm just in a really bad mood right now, Cream...you're going to just have to ignore me." She smiled at him, glad he apologized now. He wasn't though, because this gave her the right to quiz him. He decided that his excuse gave him the right to refuse to respond though, or just leave.

"It's alright, Sonic! But, why are you in such a bad mood." Sonic wanted to groan, the annoying question. The one he honestly didn't know the answer to, and even if he had known the answer to it, he wouldn't be discussing it with a five-year-old rabbit. He just smiled and shook his head though, he really thought he was too nice sometimes, but he'd kind of earned reputation for remaining cool almost constantly.

"I dunno...I've just got a lot on my mind." She examined him curiously for a moment, but he didn't give her much time to think things over in her naive little mind. "Well, hey...I'll have to catch up with you again later, I'm sure Shadow's in over his head with Mecha, so I really oughta go help him out." It was an excuse, but he hadn't really been thinking about it. He had to be absolutely crazy to leave Metal Sonic and Shadow to duke it out, even if this didn't leave his friend whimpering on the ground, it was going to leave a serious mess of the surrounding area. Actually, it would probably result in both, so he waved to Cream after a moment and took off. She let him go, though, because she really didn't have anything else to say to him at the moment. She decided that since Sonic had no clue what was wrong with _Sonic, _Amy would have absolutely all the answers.

As if on cue, or as if Sonic had sensed it, the tornado immediately cast a shadow over Cream. She looked up, and waved furiously at the aircraft. Amy looked down out of the airplane, "Tails! Hold on, look, it's Cream and Cheese!" Tails peered downwards and saw the bunny waving haplessly at them.

"Well, looks like she wants to talk to us...or at least to come with us, might as well go say hello!" He began to slowly lower the aircraft towards Cream. Of course, the civilians of this area just walked happily around it, as if there was absolutely nothing weird about the fact that a fox with two tails was landing a relatively small airplane in the middle of their city.

"Hey, Cream!" Amy jumped out of the plane as soon as it was close enough to the ground where she wouldn't break her neck and ran over to the cream colored rabbit.

Knuckles sank into the seat of the aircraft, sharing Sonic's feelings on the standard of the small rabbit creature and in no mood to hear that overly high-pitched voice, actually he winced when he did hear it, as it rang through your ears like a whistle. "Amy, Tails, Knuckles! Hey guys! Are you guys looking for Metal Sonic too?" Knuckles guessed this made her think she was knowledgeable, so he just sank further into the aircraft hoping the rabbit had no reason to come bother him. He didn't want her to come either, though, he mentally prepared his speech on how there wasn't enough room for her to come. Of course, he was sure this would result in him, not Cream, going it on foot.

"Yes, we are. How did you know about that Cream?" Tails just fell right into her trap with this question, it was visible in the smug look on the almost-infant's face.

Amy didn't though, she hardly gave her a chance to answer, "...well, we're really not! We are actually looking to protect the rest of the chaos emeralds! So he doesn't take anymore of them...Sonic and Shadow are the two looking for Mecha." Tails would have argued the point that their intention was to find Metal Sonic, but after thinking it over, he decided that Amy actually had a better idea, so he just nodded in confirmation.

Cream nodded, but still was determine to show off how she knew that Metal Sonic was alive again, "Well, I saw him and Shadow come through here, then Sonic told me that Dr. Eggman had accidentally let him get free again, so now he was looking for the chaos emeralds." Amy frowned at this comment.

"Ohh...so you mean Sonic's already left here too? Why does it seem like he's almost running from me lately?" She stomped on the ground with her foot, "He better not go off and get into some trouble!" Cream just smiled and put her hand on Amy's shoulder.

"Don't worry, he just said he had a lot on his mind." More attempts to be knowledgeable, "And he'll be okay, he said he was going to help Shadow out!" Knuckles did want to speak with her now, this better not be in vain, his poor eats would never forgive him.

"What about Rouge, have you seen her?" Cream looked over at him, then shook her head. Darn, it had been in vain, though his ears did not hold him in their debt, because he sank back down in the aircraft before she could speak directly to him.

"Well, can I come with you guys to help you guard the chaos emeralds? It's so boring in this town!" Knuckles closed his eyes, not wanting to hear the dreaded answer.

"Absolutely!" Tails smiled at her and patted her on the back, "The more the merrier."

"Hey! We don't have enough room, me and Amy are really more than is supposed to be in this little thing anyway!" Tails looked over at Knuckles and thought about this for a moment.

"Okay, Knuckles, you're the strong guy though...you really ought to let me and Cream ride and you can manage your way by yourself!" She just had to compliment him when she said it, didn't she? He didn't care how innocent she seemed, Knuckles was convinced Amy was a manipulative woman.

"Alright, alright...well, guess I should probably be protecting the Master Emerald anyway...I really forgot about it, and who knows...Mecha might just need it too...so I'll see you guys around." He burrowed into the ground, it scared Tails that dirt came up even though they were in the middle of a city. It was odd that he could even dig through the concrete, but like always, Tails just ignored it.

---

Shadow groaned a few times, holding his head, he wasn't really all that sore. He was actually wondering why Mecha wasn't beating the crap out of him at the moment. He sat up after just a moment, he guessed Metal Sonic had hit him a little too hard in the head, considering he had been knocked out and his head was pounding like a bass drum. "Where did-..?" He didn't have to ask to get the answer, of course, Sonic couldn't have left the battle to him. Though, he had to admit at the moment he owed Sonic because he'd be really hurting right now, had he not come along. Then, he thought, no he didn't, he didn't have to admit that, so he didn't. He could have handled himself just fine had Sonic not been there.

However, he did have to admit that if he didn't step into the fight right now, Sonic was going to be seriously hurting later, if he could even feel later. Mecha obviously wanted to save the more painful stuff for him, as now he was using those fun little claws to rip Sonic to pieces. "I don't get it though...we've never had this many problems with Mecha...and wait, where 'are' the chaos emeralds he had anyway?" He looked on the ground for the chaos emeralds, then he remembered the weird skill himself and everyone here had to make the things they were holding just disappear, but for arguments sake he tried to think this may actually mean something. Shadow had the red chaos emerald around his neck, it was attached to a string there, like a necklace, that had been Amy's idea. He really didn't see the chaos emeralds Metal Sonic had though, he chalked it up to that cool power though and concentrated more on what was going on.

"You're really making me mad, Mecha..." Sonic staggered back to his feet, as did Mecha after they had both introduced their fists to each other's faces. Of course, the difference in this was, Metal Sonic's fist was metal, Sonic hit one knee after a second, panting a little heavily.

"Okay...you oversized CD player..." Shadow did a roundhouse kick on Mecha's head, sending his head in a 360 degree spin, about six of them.

"Oversized CD player? Shadow, you're hilarious." Shadow turned and smirked and Sonic.

"Well, at least it was original!" He gestured to Sonic's current condition, "And look at you! At least I got him off your back for a few seconds."

"Maybe, but I saved your butt too, you know!" Shadow made a face, he still didn't have to admit that, but just to be nice he decided to do so.

"Fine, consider it even...are you okay?" Sonic nodded his head, Shadow didn't really believe him, but he wasn't about to cling to him and disagree. That would be scary and weird. "I don't think we're up to par right now though, either of us...so maybe we need to make him go away?" Sonic nodded his head, still breathing hard.

"I think...that might be the most intelligent thing...you've ever said." Shadow just mocked Sonic's words by mouthing them in a humorous way.

Shadow smirked as Sonic rolled his eyes at him mocking him in that manner, then he turned to see Mecha coming in their direction again, "Y'know...he's kind of predictable..." He jerked forward, outstretching his hand for a second, "Chaos Control!" Though, he didn't warp, Metal Sonic did.

Sonic blinked after a second, "Where exactly did you send him?" Shadow clapped his hands together, pleased with his own intelligence.

"...in the middle of a volcano." Sonic shook his head and laughed slightly.

"That's not going to stop him."

"Yeah, but it was the best I could come up with."

Sonic made a face, "You could have warped him to the moon or...Jupiter..." He then smirked and looked pointedly in Shadow's direction.

"Shut up, Faker..." Sonic rolled his eyes, then sat down on the ground. He grunted slightly as he hit the ground, Shadow looked over to him. "Are you 'sure' you're okay?" He kind of raised an eyebrow at him, or something of the sort, he made the facial expression a human would if they raised an eyebrow at someone.

"Fine...don't think he's ever thought to put his claws to use before." Shadow walked over to him and sat down. "You know, it feels really dumb just sitting here, when we know for a fact that he's probably still looking for the chaos emeralds."

"Yep." Shadow nodded in agreement, but made absolutely no suggestion that he might be planning on moving in the next five minutes. "But, my head hurts."

Sonic's eye kind of twitched as he looked over at Shadow, "You know what? So does mine..." He obviously had not been perfectly fine since he was now unconscious with his head on Shadow's shoulder, this, after a few minutes, brought a severe redness to Shadow's cheeks. He stared in the other direction, knowing very well no one was around, but this was embarrassing the living hell out of him and he didn't know why, but he didn't move or push Sonic off either. He stared at the ground, his cheeks still flushed.

'_Why is this embarrassing me? And why...gah...Sonic! You pain in the ass!"_

---

"So, Amy, do you know what's wrong with Sonic? He really went off on me while I was talking to him! And for no good reason..." Tails looked back at Cream, but tried not to do anything to noticeable, he did want to know Amy's opinion on the whole thing though.

Amy smiled, "Nope! Guess I don't know everything though..." Tails breathed a sigh of relief, luckily, it was drowned out by the noises the Tornado was making.

"Guess not." Cream mumbled, "But, aren't you and Sonic dating?" Amy blinked and looked at her for a long time.

"No, we aren't. Sonic's too immature for a girlfriend! I don't even think he knows what one is." Tails laughed at Amy's defensiveness about this. "I don't even know if he likes me or not, he sure hasn't been acting like it lately, actually...lately he's kind of been a jerk!"

Tails smiled, "All guys have their spells, you know? Besides, you know Sonic, he has his little mood swings every now and again, just don't worry about it, Amy, you either, Cream...you know he'll come around."

Amy nodded at Tails, she liked the comforting advice he tended to supply her with, "Thanks, Tails, I'm surprised you don't have a girlfriend! You've got the perfect attitude."

"I-uh...me! Noo..." Cream giggled behind Amy at his reaction, Amy smiled when she saw him turn red.

"You mean you don't have any little crushes we should know about, Taaails?" She smirked at him, as he got redder and redder. She wondered if he did, or if the subject of girls in general still embarrassed him.

"Oh, look! We're here!" Amy made a weird face as they began to land, they weren't anywhere. Absolutely no where.

"We're...uh...where, Tails?" Amy made a funny face as they were about to land in this cherry tree orchard, they actually landed in a cherry tree.

"The cherry tree...orchard! You know! The one...that has the chaos emerald in it?" He smiled and stood reassuringly as he hopped out.

"Um...no." She just shot down that idea in a heartbeat, "Where is Sonic? I want to find Sonic!" She put her hands on her hips as she got rather impatient with him in a very short time span, but that was to be expected since Amy was a girl.

"I thought we were supposed to be protecting the chaos emeralds? Why are we looking for Sonic!" Cream sounded confused now, Cheese nodded his head in agreement. Amy glared back at her, she then motioned for her to be quiet.

Cream made a face, "Well, we were!"

Tails smiled at them both, he quickly ran over to one of the trees, one near to the one the landed in. He looked inside the tree and quickly pulled out the grayish white emerald. "Oh, wow, there really is an emerald here? I just thought..."

"Nope! It's my special hiding place, there isn't an emerald in my house."

"So...you lied to everyone Tails? Not to mention, you made Metal Sonic tear up your house for nothing?" Amy eyed him suspiciously, "And why did he even go to your house if there wasn't a chaos emerald in there?"

"Well, you see...there was, there was a fake one in there!"

"Wow, Tails...that's kind of a good idea, I thought you were just landing here for the sake of avoiding Amy's questions about girls!" Tails looked over at Cream who was having Cheese pick her some cherries from the trees.

"Well...heh, nope! Just the chaos emerald!"

"Whatever, Tails..." Amy just shrugged him off and tapped the Tornado, "You still crashed the Tornado and we need to go." She seemed more impatient than usual, something must have been bugging her, Tails nodded sure this theory was correct, Amy thought he was nodding to her though.

* * *

Hm, I brought Cream in Wow, that was a lot of yaoi! That was so hard, I commend people who do that naturally. It's weird. But, it oddly almost makes me horny, and to think, they're freaking hedgehogs. I want to write it, but I 'don't'. It's a horrendous feelings, you know? I guess I'm not going to delete it! We'll just see how long I can keep this up! 


	3. To Make Your Heart Swell and Burst

**_Chapter 3_**

**_Found the Formula to Make Your Heart Swell and Burst_**

Disclaimer: I'm like...not joking at all, I seriously don't own any Sonic characters, I own the games...because I bought them. So oohh! WHAT NOW! ...I also own the right to be grossed out...and to say, THIS STORY WILL 'NOT' HAVE ANY SEX! Hello? I'm having enough trouble making them just be somewhat affectionate. Gimme a break, that's gross!

3 reviews for one chapter? For a story I thought would get zip(not counting flames), that's not bad, right? I haven't gotten any flames yet, but...I'm almost positive I will. I really am honestly a funny sight getting all scared every time I get a review, I've always been like that though. Well...yeah. So, guess I'm gonna keep going, I'm off school and once I get back in it, the updates aren't going to come as easy, y'know? I hope I can keep doing this!

And just for the record, this will have RougexKnuckles and miiiight have like a tiny bit of like Tailsx?(not my own character, I seriously just don't know of a good person, any suggestions?) and RougexShadow

* * *

"Maybe you're just accusing me of caring too much?" Rouge smirked at Knuckles who was convinced she was attempting to take the master emerald. He let out a sigh of relief finally as she turned to leave him once again. 

"I don't care what you say, Rouge, the point is...as soon as you knew I was away from it..."

"Forget it, Knuckles, I'm not arguing this point with you anymore, I wasn't trying to steal your stupid emerald. Regardless, I did think you were with Tails and Amy...what happened?" Knuckles just waved his hand hastily.

"_Cream _showed up." This got a laugh out of Rouge, she shook her head at him after staring him down for a couple of minutes. His expression was stiff, positive he wasn't going to change his tune even if her expression was a subtle way of saying he was overreacting.

She smirked at him and ran her fingers along the green emerald, "Well, I guess I better leave you to protecting this though...and I do have my own business to attend to." Knuckles waved his hand motioning for her to go on. "Guess I'll see ya around." Knuckles nodded his head, but was too busy looking the emerald over to respond in a more attentive way. Rouge just snorted and took off. "The echidna is the most frustrating guy I've ever met all he cares about is that stupid emerald!" She took a deep breath, looking down on the ground below, "I can't be thinking about that right now though, I probably need to report what's been going on to the government."

Gliding for the most part on her wings, she flapped them occasionally to maintain her status in the air, she then pulled out her little radio that she seemed to constantly have. "Rouge reporting...we may have a problem with the chaos emeralds." She smirked, she knew this would trigger an uproar, as she already knew the emerald in Central City had been taken. She got just the response she was expecting too.

"Ya think?" It was that of a man, probably well into his forties if not fifties, it sounded like gravel, not one you would expect to come from an attractive man. "An emerald has been stolen from Central City already! Where have you been, Rouge! We have been trying to contact you for over an hour!" She knew what was coming next, they of course were going to try and put it on Sonic and Shadow because according to the government, they did absolutely everything.

"I'm aware of that, sir, I apologize...I've been a little busy...I'll try to stay more alert on your calls." Truth be known, she knew they had been calling for the past thirty minutes, she just hadn't cared to answer their little complaining messages.

"Yeah! Well, maybe you outta be more aware of your little friends-..." She scowled at the radio, mocking the man's voice. She made a few faces at him, which was what allowed him to get that far in his sentence.

"It wasn't Sonic 'or' Shadow, general. It was Metal Sonic, remember him?" She corrected him before he could blame the two of them. The normal procedure for their little conversations when something like this happened. She wasn't sure if he was just stupid or if he had an intense dislike for the hedgehogs.

"How do y-?"

She interrupted him once more, "I've seen him for myself..." She lied just to prove her point to the man, who accepted nothing more than this type of evidence. "And wouldn't it make more sense to blame the guy who hasn't saved the world before?"

"...oh, I, uh, guess?" She mocked him once again, this was the reason she was avoiding getting their latest little video cameras attached, it was too much fun to mock the idiocy of the government when they couldn't see her. "Well, be that as it may, ...carry on." He seemed befuddled as to what to say next.

Rouge didn't respond and clicked the radio off, putting it back on her belt, she shook her head. "Now, let's go see if I can find that metal contraption..." Rouge's shoulder was jerked back as Metal Sonic blew past her. "Uh!" She shook her head, knowing she wasn't making the greatest of decisions she took off after him. Luckily for her, actually, he was far too fast for someone going her speed to catch, she stopped and stared after him. "Guess Sonic and Shadow haven't found him...or...I hope they haven't."

---

Sonic opened his green eyes after a moment, Shadow heard the quiet whimper and looked to him after a moment. He still hadn't moved and he was still embarrassed, "Sonic?" The blue hedgehog pulled himself upright in his already sitting position.

"Ow, hey, did I pass out?" He looked at the black hedgehog, who was masking the redness of his cheeks even after Sonic had gotten up.

"Yes, Faker, you did. Right on top of me, actually, thanks a lot." He stood up, and Sonic leaned back on his arms. "Hey, you were the one who said we were stupid for sitting here when we should be chasing Mecha, so now what are you doing?"

"Hn, back off, Shadow. I can barely move..." He winced slightly as a jolt of pain shot through him, as if someone had stabbed him with a knife. He looked up at Shadow skeptically, "You would be hurting too if he tried to dissect you with his claws!"

Shadow just crossed his arms, he did notice the jagged lines of blood along the blue hedgehog's fur, he hadn't noticed due to his embarrassment before. Jagged lines down his body looked pretty painful by standards. "Well, you dumbass, what do you want me to do?"

Sonic mocked him and rolled his eyes after a moment, "You are a big help, a really big help." After a moment he got to his feet, he faltered but with Shadow's assistance managed to stay on his own two feet.

"You need some rest, Sonic...in your condition, somehow I don't think you'd be more than a pothole in the road for Metal Sonic and considering your past experiences, I don't think he'd have a problem making quick work of you." Sonic nodded in agreement and then looked over at Shadow, Shadow was definitely better off than him. A few bruises and that was it, he was the Ultimate Life Form, Sonic supposed he was probably designed to take more than a little damage.

"Oh, yeah, let's go take a nap while Mecha proceeds to blow up the Earth! That sounds like a pretty good plan to me." He smirked at Shadow's exasperated expression with him. He looked the opposite direction and then back into those cocky green eyes.

"Okay, Einstein, just give me your awesome idea! Run at Mecha screaming ridiculous war cries?" He scoffed at the idea immediately, "You're going to be killed if you go face him now, I probably will be too...and did you notice he wasn't holding the chaos emeralds?"

"Yeah, I knew he had some, but..." Sonic made a weird face, the thought of the power they all had come into his mind, but he assured himself he would not have noticed it if it was the power, because he never noticed it when it when people just randomly made things disappear. He stared at the ground for a moment, "Maybe he's using them to like...make himself stronger? Maybe he's...absorbing them or something?"

"How freakin cliche can you get, Mecha?" Sonic laughed at Shadow's comment after a moment of thinking it over. He smiled then knelt down, moaning quietly. Shadow looked down, his eyes getting a little wide with curiosity, he held out his hand which Sonic took after a moment. He slung Sonic's arm over his shoulder and looked at him, then he laughed, "Sonic, you are such a pain in the ass!"

"Oh shut up!"

---

After three attempts and the Tornado still failing them, Tails was beginning to get disturbed by Amy and Cream's impatience. "Look, what do you want me to do? It's not my fault!"

"You crashed it Tails! And I wanna know where Sonic is! He might be in trouble!" Cream looked at Amy, who had gotten herself all in a frenzy about Sonic. Cream just petted her in a way.

"It's all right, Amy! Sonic is always okay!" Amy nodded, trying to get a grip on the way she was acting.

"Please hurry, Tails. If you don't, I'm going to hyperventilate, and we still don't know where Metal Sonic is." Tails nodded back at Amy, and kept trying different ways to start up the Tornado, nothing was working.

Cream smiled and patted Tails on the back, "You can do it, Tails, I believe in you." Tails looked back at her and gave her a little skeptical glance and then started concentrating on the aircraft again. Amy pulled Cream back from Tails, realizing herself that Cream was being slightly dramatic about fixing the Tornado, since it broke on a daily basis.

"I'm really trying, girls! I'm worried about Sonic too." He tried again, thankfully the machine cranked up this time, Tails let out a breath of relief. Amy jumped for joy.

"Hooray! Good job, Tails, now let's go!" She jumped in the Tornado and her movements proved that she wasn't going to stop complaining at him until they were in the presence of the blue hedgehog that she seemed to have random compulsions to need to see.

Cream jumped in behind her and they both urged Tails along, he made a face and looked up, "Why do I always seem to get stuck with them? Is this someone's way of telling me I'm a whuss?" He didn't get to talk to himself anymore because the calling of Amy and Cream was really irritating him, he jumped in the plane and he took flight out of the tree. This left the tree really bent out of shape, which metaphorically speaking got Cream all bent out of shape.

"Tails, look what you did to that beautiful cherry tree!" Tails let out an exasperated hiss and snarled under his breath at the little rabbit. Amy patted him on the head trying to calm him down.

"Forget the chaos emeralds, let's go try to find Sonic and Shadow, now, Tails!" Tails nodded back to her, they honestly hadn't seen him since he ran off racing with Shadow. "Do you think he's with Shadow?" Tails shrugged his shoulders, he wasn't paying attention to what she was saying though because his thoughts were on his own issues.

"_With_ Shadow? Wait, what? Wouldn't that be...?" Leave this kind of thinking to Cream, of course considering she thought she was ten years older than she was, she couldn't take this to mean what it was meant to mean, she had to make it mean something completely idiotic.

Amy jumped all over Cream now, "Cream! No, not like that! That's just...why would you even think that!" Tails laughed at her disturbed reaction to this, but then made a face at her next comment, "...or, that could actually be hot." His eyes widened as he bit his tongue after that, his cheeks flushed again.

"Hot? Amy?" Tails kept facing forward, hoping that she didn't notice the redness of his cheeks. He stared straight ahead into the blue sky. "Sonic? And Shadow? You think that would be hot?" He looked back at her for a split second, then whirled again.

Cream giggled as Amy mouthed to her that Tails was getting flustered again, "Sure...I mean, think about it?" Tails just made an interesting face.

"It wouldn't make you jealous?"

"Well, maybe...WHY! He doesn't like...Shadow like...that, right?" Tails stared ahead after a moment.

"No, of course not!" He shook his head, reassuring her and himself, he would have reassured Cream, but she had no idea what was so different about the two of them and Amy and Sonic. His blue eyes drifted back to Amy to see what she was doing, she seemed to be thinking of that seriously now.

"Why are you freaking out, Amy? Do you think Sonic li-..?" Amy shook her head furiously before Cream could finish her sentence, that made absolutely no sense. Sonic and Shadow were completely different, they didn't fit together no matter how you sliced it. The two of them seemed totally off to her, she hadn't thought Tails was serious, but now he was. But, why was he getting flustered about it?

"Why are we even TALKING about this? Let's just go find them! Amy shrugged off her strange annoyance at the subject, she wasn't positive Sonic liked her, but he couldn't possibly like another guy!

"You've got a point...but, I'm really not sure where to start!" He turned back to Amy, and made a face.

Amy pouted after a minute, "Tails! We have to find them! Figure out where to start! Because...just c'monnn!" Tails smiled at her, his smile was lopsided. Amy just nodded and rolled her eyes as she sat back slightly, though she couldn't go back too far or she would have crushed Cream.

"Cheese!" The chao decided to make its presence known with a high pitched voice just as annoying as Cream's herself, Amy looked back and forced a smile.

"...yeah, cheese..." Amy turned back to face the front, a look of frustration that she hadn't realized that while bringing Cream they would also be bringing Cheese. Though, he hadn't spoken up until now, so hopefully he would remain as quiet as he had been.

Nope.

"Cheeeese! Cheese, cheese, cheeese!" Amy and Tails thought they were about to pull their hair out, Amy closed her eyes tightly to keep from yelling at Cheese or Cream. Tails just kept trying to concentrate on flying the Tornado, though it was getting harder to ignore the squeak like noise Cheese was making, and Cream wasn't helping with her happy tone while playing with him.

"Umm...hey, Cream...Cheese is breaking Tails' concentration, could you kinda keep him quiet for a little while?" Amy looked back at her for a moment and Cream just smiled pleasantly at her, she nodded her head.

"Oh, sure, Amy. Sorry Tails. Shhh..." She attempted to quiet Cheese, it didn't help though, the annoying little blue thing kept right on. The bad thing was, Cream treated it as if she had actually succeeded in shutting the little nuisance up.

Tails was at the point of going insane when he jerked his head down to Shadow and Sonic, it looked like Shadow was supporting Sonic. "Hey! Look, it's our lucky day! There they are!" Tails gestured for Cream and Amy to look down.

Both of them complied and Amy proceeded to holler at Sonic, who flinched, Shadow jerked his head up. "...it's your girlfriend!" Shadow said this mockingly, knowing very well that it was going to get a rise out of the green-eyed hedgehog.

"Shadow, you know she's not my girlfriend!" He glared at the black and red hedgehog and Shadow just smirked, proving to Sonic that he had gotten the reaction he had wanted. "And don't look at me that way, either." Shadow kept the same look on his face, raising an eyebrow finally.

"I know she's not, Faker. But it sure as hell is fun to get on your nerves." Shadow looked up again, then frowned, "Ah, dammit, they have that annoying little rabbit with them! Man, I hate that thing!"

Sonic laughed and nodded in agreement, the Tornado landed fairly smoothly, this was good, another crash would have probably done the aircraft in for the day. "Shadow! Sonic! Did you two run into Metal Sonic?" They both gave Tails a "duh" look of sorts.

"No, Tails...Sonic just fell into a thorn bush." Amy jumped out of the plan as soon as it was near enough to the ground, as she had done before when she had seen Cream. Cream waited til Tails had secured the plane on the ground and came around to help her out himself.

"Aww, Sonic! You look horrible! Are you okay!" Sonic held out a hand so as to keep her a fair distance away from him and he nodded to her reassuringly.

The other hedgehog chuckled at Amy's reaction to be held away from him, "Sonic...ooh, Metal Sonic is going down when I see him." Shadow shook his head, as if Amy herself was just going to beat Mecha, that was going to happen.

"Yeah, Amy...I bet you're just gonna kick his butt, hm?" He smiled at her though, "...don't get yourself killed. I'm really fine, it's just a few cuts." Amy looked at the ground and nodded her head, she didn't believe him, but she didn't want to seem clingy, she did though as she grabbed his arm.

"...you're a liar." Shadow whispered to him lowly, as was his way of pointing out that Sonic was not fine and it was more than "a few cuts". Sonic just made a face at him.

"She doesn't have to know everything." Was his whisper in response to that.

She ran her hand along his arm, three jagged cuts, her green eyes were set on the blue fur, matted and out of place with the red liquid. Amy just looked up at him and shook her head, "You never get this hurt, Sonic...what happened?" Tails and Cream then made their way over to the three of them.

Sonic shrugged his shoulders, "Lay off, Amy...I was just being careless." He eyed her, his expression calling for her to back off.

She nodded her head and then looked to Shadow, "What about you? What happened?" She tugged at his arm now, he just twitched. He shook his head, he didn't really want to talk to her about their little skirmish with Metal Sonic. Honestly, Shadow didn't know why him and Sonic had faired so poorly against the metal version of the blue hedgehog.

Cream smiled and waved happily, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Sonic looked as if he had been torn to ribbons, "Oh my goodness! What happened, Sonic! Did you fight Mecha?" Sonic found that just hilarious, she said "mecha" she really wanted to be important, and in his eyes, she was just failing horrendously.

"Yeah, Cream...don't worry about it..."

"Why do you keep telling me not to worry about things, Sonic? Stop treating me like a little kid!" Shadow snarled at her, he didn't give Sonic a chance to defend himself.

"...you 'are' a little kid." He shot her a hot glance, his glances were obviously more intimidating than everyone else's because Cream just whimpered and looked at the ground.

"Can you not stand by yourself?" Sonic made a face at her, he looked at Tails, not even feeling like he needed to answer something like that.

"Tails...where are Knuckles and Rouge?" Typical of Sonic to ask that question, he never really deemed Tails of any importance, just a way of finding out where everyone else was. Tails allowed him to do this though, because he honestly admired Sonic.

"Knuckles went to protect the Master Emerald and Rouge just...left, I'm not really sure where she went." Shadow nodded his head then sighed, and looked to see what Sonic was about to say.

"...gotcha..." Sonic looked exasperated as he knew he was going to have to openly explain what had happened when they fought Mecha. He wished Shadow would explain it, but he seemed to have no intention of doing so. "Yeah, Mecha was a lot stronger than usual...he seriously kicked our asses..."

"Or he kicked Sonic's anyway..." Shadow looked at Sonic, he knew that wasn't going to fly, but he still just wanted to receive that annoyed glance he knew he was going to get from Sonic if he said that.

"Shadow's too." Shadow shrugged his shoulders, he knew he had no right to disagree but he really wanted to.

Amy laughed at their argument, "Well, we were getting worried about you guys...but, since you didn't stop Mecha, I guess we're probably going to be doing more worrying, aren't we?" Sonic nodded at her. "Just great."

Tails just smiled at them, "Sonic, you really look like you need rest, or your not going to be able to fight Mecha at all, and you don't look in the best of shape either, Shadow...and without you too...Mecha's going to tear this whole world apart." They both liked that compliment and just nodded at him.

"Can't sleep at my house though! It's GONE." Shadow laughed, Tails scowled at the fact that he was laughing, he wouldn't find it funny at all if his house got blown away. But, he didn't know that Shadow even had a house.

Amy giggled, "Don't worry, guys! My house is still there and it doesn't have a chaos emerald in it, and Mecha can't get too far we have two of the emeralds!" Shadow looked at her, curiously, they had actually managed to obtain two of the chaos emeralds?

"That's counting the one you have, though, Shadow." She gestured to him. No, of course they hadn't, they did manage to get one though, so he couldn't complain.

"Guess so, but that means we might not have long to take a break...he has three-..."

"Two...one is a fake."

Sonic gritted his teeth, he didn't like being interrupted, nor informed of things by a five-year-old, "Thank you, Cream." She smiled sweetly at him and just nodded her head, her cream-colored ears flopping.

Tails patted Cream on the head, though she didn't sense the hostility in Sonic's voice, he sensed it for her. "Yeah...well, it's like you said, Sonic...you guys aren't going to get much time to recover, so the quicker you get some rest, the better." Both of them nodded again.

"I have a first-aid kit at my house too, I can treat your wounds!" Shadow smirked at Sonic, as they both knew she was talking just to him, as she didn't really give a flip about helping Shadow out. Sonic looked at him and just shook his head, exhaling sharply.

"That's just wonderful, Amy." She could tell by his tone, that Sonic really didn't think that was as "wonderful" as he was letting her think. Shadow stifled a laugh, as he saw the expression on her face was not amused.

"CHEESE!" Shadow proceeded to backhand the thing to the ground, Cream squealed and knelt down.

"Cheese, oh no!" She picked him up and cuddled him into her arms.

Sonic laughed, almost falling to the ground, as Shadow turned away, "That is enough of that nonsense." Tails and Amy were trying not to laugh too, though it was hard considering they had been wanting to do that for some time.

"Nonsense, Shadow?" Shadow nodded, informing Sonic that is exactly what that little outburst was. Suddenly, Sonic let out a slight gasp, Shadow jerked slight as he felt Sonic's weight increase on his shoulder.

"Sonic!" Amy knelt down, she saw Sonic was still conscious by the way his eyelids twitched, though they were closed. She looked up at Shadow, who made the wise choice of kneeling, allowing Sonic to rest slightly on the ground.

"I think he's just exhausted, Amy...just don't worry about it." Amy nodded, a lot of concern flooding her eyes. He looked up, his red eyes seeing the form of Mecha pass over head, he was glad Metal Sonic didn't take that opportunity to come kill them all, as that would have worked very well in his favor.

Tails nodded to Shadow, "You're right...I think he just needs to rest!"

"What happened! Is he going to be okay? Is he dead?" Everyone immediately resisted the urge to knock Cream and Cheese off the face of the planet.

Amy looked at Sonic, then back up at Shadow, she finally said something intelligent in the presence of Shadow, which was rare except that speech she had given him shortly before he went to help out Sonic and everyone else on the ARK, "You can warp yourself and Sonic to my house, the rest of us will take the Tornado."

"Yeah." He nodded his head, then looked back down to Sonic. After a second of concentration, he managed to warp the two of them in front of the pinkish white house that he despised being around, though that wasn't on his mind at the moment. He looked down at the stirring blue hedgehog.

Sonic lifted his head, unfortunately slightly TOO fast,which unfortunately resulted in the most awkward moment of either of their lives, his lips met Shadow's, it was gentle, which made it all the more awkward for both of them. Shadow blinked, his eyes widening, they both pushed each other, resulting in the other falling backwards. They both stared blankly at each other, their cheeks burning like mad. "I'm sorry!"

"Sorry!" Shadow fumbled through the word about the same time Sonic did, both of them glared furiously at the ground. _"I just KISSED him...as if that wasn't enough...I think...I might have...oh my God..."_

Sonic had the exact same expression Shadow had painted across his face, _"I think Rouge was right...and I think I'm going insane!" _He just eyed the dirt, "I didn't mean–..."

"I know!" Shadow shook his head, but they both thought the dirt was the most interesting thing in the whole world at the moment. "Me either." He twitched, he kept thinking the utter burn of his cheeks was going to stop, it wasn't. "Guess, accidents happen..."

"...well, yeah. I would never...I mean, it's not like that..."

"No!"

"It was just an accident, that's all." Shadow nodded, this was officially weird.

* * *

OH MY GOD. I just wrote about two guys kissing. It didn't turn me on...WHY IN THE HELL WOULD IT TURN ME ON? Even if it did, it was hard as crap...but if I can do that...I can do this story...not I gotta figure out how long it's gonna be! 


	4. Hey Kid, You'll Never Live This Down

_**Chapter 4**_

_**Hey Kid, You'll Never Live This Down**_

Disclaimer: Didn't own it last chapter, DON'T own it now, won't own it next chapter. Damn disclaimers!

I'm doing it again! ; Incase you guys haven't noticed, I'm getting my chapter titles(with the exception of 1) from random songs. That's...um..."A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a little more 'Touch Me'". Fits the chapter.

* * *

Tails jumped out of the aircraft looking the two disoriented hedgehogs over, "Hey, are you guys okay, you both look like you just saw a ghost!" Shadow forced a smile and shook his head, he was assured something like that had happened, just multiply the weirdness times ten. Tails cocked his head to the side and eyed Sonic for a response, one he wasn't going to get from him, as he was just staring at the hard ground. "Well, okay, guys..." Amy and Cream soon followed. 

"Cheese will be okay!" Cream reassured everyone as if this was something they wanted to hear, no one even looked in her direction after this comment, not even Amy.

"...dammit!" Shadow broke the awkward silence finally, "Well, I guess we really ought to be working on feeling better, huh?" He looked over to Sonic who just nodded his head after a minute.

"Hey, do you think it's a good idea for Amy and Cream to be here? I mean..." Tails held up a hand and nodded his head at the green-eyed hedgehog, he looked over to Amy and Cream. Amy looked devastated as was to be expected, Cream just waved at him. Tails weakly smiled and looked back to Sonic.

"Are you going to make me tell her?" Sonic nodded his head as he unsteadily got to his feet, the weight he put on hisleft leg far much more than he would have normally, but with a gash like he had down his right one, he couldn't help it. Tails turned to them, then back to Shadow and Sonic. "I can't kick Amy out of her own house."

"You can kick Cream out of it." Shadow gave him a pointed glance, his look signaled for the fox to hurry up and comply with Sonic's request before he did it himself.

"Hey, Cream...uhm, how about you come with me? Amy can take care of Sonic and Shadow! We should go...uh, fine the chaos emeralds." Cream tilted her head at him, then agreed figuring she was getting an important job. She wasn't.

Amy smiled though, she was getting the better job, "Well...okay, I'll see you guys later!" Of course she ran over to Sonic and helped him, this made sense though even had Shadow been dying she would have probably gone and helped out Sonic. After she finished trying desperately to show Sonic some kind of affection that was doing nothing but making him feel extremely awkward, Amy finally got him into a bed and Shadow was just sitting on her couch. She had actually asked him if he wanted to lay down, but he had declined.

"Just go take care of him, I'm not really all that hurt anyway..." Shadow motioned for her to go with his hand and she just made a face at him.

"You do know, I'm supposed to take care of you." He just scoffed at this comment and didn't look over at the pink hedgehog.

"I don't need anyone to take care of me, especially the likes of you." Amy glared at him for this, that was completely unnecessary. Finally, she just left him in there to his ego, she wanted to take care of Sonic anyway.

Sonic was being about as stubborn as the dark hedgehog, he was sitting up against the bed rest with his arms crossed, she gave him a cross look of sorts. "Don't look at me like that." She just put her hands on her hips and turned her nose up at this comment.

"Go to sleep, Sonic! Don't be dumb, you're never going to be able to do anything if you don't get some rest." He turned away from her, and rolled his eyes.

"You already took care of my wounds, Amy, I'm not tired so there's no reason for me to go to sleep." Amy got an exasperated look as she jumped up on the bed and pouted at him. He just gave her an odd look and paid her no more mind than that.

She smirked, "Well...if you don't I'll just have to sit here and talk to you." She crawled over him slightly, she got her face nearly an inch from his own. If she tried to kiss him, Sonic just might have to go crawl under a rock and die. It was bad enough to have accidentally kissed Shadow, but Amy? He had to admit though, it was a good reason to go to sleep. Though, she scared him because the look on her face was almost seductive and for Amy that was very odd.

He held out his hands, and proceeded to push her back. "Fine, you want me to get some rest, I will. Just get out of my face." He shut his eyes in annoyance and jerked down in the bed, pulling the covers up over his head. Amy shook her head at him, her feelings were slightly hurt, but she couldn't let that get to her considering that was her motive, to get him to go to sleep. She just sighed and shook her head.

"Okay, fine, Sonic..." She exited the room, she didn't know why exactly, because walking into the other room was only going to lead her to have to deal with Shadow. She felt slight tears burning at her eyes and she didn't have any idea why. Maybe she did, but she didn't want to admit the fact that she was crying because of it.

"What's wrong with you?" Now, that was surprising, since when had Shadow been able to read emotions, especially hers. She looked up at him and sat down on the couch, having no where else to go, and at the moment he didn't seem to mind. She looked over at him, he was looking at her. His look wasn't concerned, but it wasn't as annoyed as it had been either.

"Why are you guys such jerks?" Shadow smirked at this comment and looked away, he figured Sonic had done something or other to piss her off.

He just laughed and didn't respond to the question, "What did Faker do to you now?" She bit her lip with her teeth, almost breaking the skin. She didn't want to discuss it with Shadow, especially after the stupid conversation her, Tails and Cream had already had earlier, she just shook her head, signaling to Shadow that he had done something.

"He's asleep."

Shadow mock scoffed, "Yeah...man, what a _jerk._" She laughed at him, thenjust smiled and sighed.

"I just want him to like me!" She turned to Shadow who jerked back as she was now closer to him, looking into his eyes for some kind of an answer. An answer he most certainly did not have! This was not the conversation he should have gotten himself into after his little incident with Sonic shortly before they got here.

"Yeah..." Shadow just shrugged his shoulders and looked off at an annoyingly pink wall. He didn't say anything more than that, because it wasn't like he had any all knowing wisdom to provide as an insight to Sonic's thoughts. His thoughts were in a mess about Sonic anyway, right now. Man, this girl just had great timing!

She sat back down and put her hands in between her legs just sighing, "I guess you wouldn't have an advice in that department, though, would you?" Shadow shook his head to signify that she was right. She just smiled after a minute, "Oh well...I guess if I let every little thing Sonic did get on my nerves then I'd really be a depressed person." Shadow just nodded, just smile and nod? Right?

---

Rouge glided overhead on her wings, occasionally flapping them to keep the momentum, she was thinking about her encounter with Mecha earlier. She saw the blue dot, that proved to be none other than the Tornado and blinked, "Tails!" She took off in that direction, the Tornado was not going at a very fast velocity so it was easy to catch up. She saw that Cream was in the vehicle with him, Amy wasn't. "Hey, guys!" Tails looked over at her and smiled.

"Hey! What's up!" He smiled and slowly started to land the plane, it was odd how he landed it as soon as he saw anyone, Rouge was happy for this at the moment.

"Guess who I ran into?" Cream wanted to guess, and Rouge really wished she hadn't said anything. Tails figured she meant Metal Sonic, but it would be best to let Cream guess so she could feel important.

After several really stupid guesses, Tails just smiled and guessed himself, "Metal Sonic?" Rouge nodded, relieved that he had taken the guesses out of Cream, as they were getting more and more ridiculous.

"He seems in a bigger hurry than you would think, you know?" Tails agreed, Cream was humming some ridiculous song to Cheese. Rouge rolled her eyes at that fact. "Where are Amy, Sonic and Shadow?" She assumed he knew, because he had probably run into Sonic if Amy was no longer with him.

"They're at Amy's house, Mecha really roughed Sonic up...so she decided to let them rest there...and since my house is..." He trailed off, suppressing much anger. Rouge smiled and patted him on the head.

"Well, that was very mature of her...and mature of them, they agreed to rest?" Tails nodded, obviously as surprised at Rouge. He thought for a moment whether to tell her how odd Sonic and Shadow had been acting when they got to her house, he just decided it wasn't important enough, he did need to work on things like that, right?

"Well, yeah...Sonic was hurt pretty bad..." Rouge made a face, that definitely wasn't something that normally would happen, she didn't inquire any further in spite of herself. Tails smiled and shook his head but turned back to the Tornado. "Well..."

"What are you two doing anyway?" Rouge raised an eyebrow at Tails and he just lowered his head, and gave her a look that told her she should not have asked that question.

"We're going to find the rest of the chaos emeralds!" Cream's perky response was overshadowed by Tails skeptic look. Rouge just smirked at him and nodded her head to Cream. She would have asked what he was intending to do if he was just flying around, but she guessed this was the only way to keep Cream occupied and not have her all up in Sonic and Shadow's business.

"What about Shadow?" Cream was disappointed about Rouge's "lack of interest" in the fact that they were going to find the chaos emeralds. After all, this fact made her look like she was doing something of use!

Tails cocked his head at her, "What about him?" Rouge rolled her eyes, what did Tails think she wanted to know? Whether he was all right, whether he was 'alive'! Any of these would have been nice, she swore she dealt with the most incompetent people.

"You said Sonic was hurt, was he alright?" Tails blinked and then nodded his head after a minute, he smiled.

"He's Shadow, of course he was alright!" Rouge laughed, then looked slightly perturbed when Cream spoke up again. The little rabbit just didn't quite know when to shut up.

"He hurt Cheese!" Cream's ears immediately drooped as she held up her little chao. Unfortunately, Shadow had not done enough damage because it was still smiling happily at Rouge. She just added to the little club that was not particularly fond of the rabbit or the chao. Though, at least Cream could say slightly more than her name.

"CHEESE!" Rouge forced a smile on her face, though it was under gritted teeth and looked back at Tails, wondering how in the world he was managing to deal with this. Tails just rolled his eyes after a second.

Rouge turned, having had quite enough of this conversation, "Well, I guess I'd better go though...lots of places to be." Tails nodded her off and she took off, Cream was upset she hadn't been said bye too, but she figured it was just as mistake.

Just for an experiment, he sat there to see how long before Cream got all up in the air, "...yep..." Cream looked at him oddly after a second.

"Um, Tails...what are you doing?" Tails just bobbed his head like you do when you have no idea what is going on but you don't want anyone to realize that.

"Just...sitting here." He smiled weakly and pressed the fuel again, nothing happened.

"Tails..." She grabbed his shoulders, "Tails! Make it go! Make it go!" As Cream shook him, she was managing to shake the entire aircraft. She was up in the air, that hadn't taken long at all.

---

Knuckles sat down and stared at the Master Emerald, like he was expecting it to talk or do a back flip. "This is getting old...maybe I should go see what Sonic is up to..." The emerald just sat there like it had for the past hour. He had to admit, the emerald's silence was a lot better than Cream's high-pitched squeakiness.

"Ah-ha!" Knuckles made a face and whirled around, seeing Eggman emerge with a chaos emerald. He had that annoying grin on his face that he always had when something went his way.

"That's a...chaos emerald!" Eggman smirked and mumbled something to himself, Knuckles immediately clinched his fists in anger. What exactly was the doctor up to now, he sure seemed a lot better off than he had been before.

More murmuring to himself, then the doctor began walking away. Being irrational as he was Knuckles jumped up and ran after him. No doubt easily catching up with him, Eggman whirled on sight of Knuckles. "Ah, well if it isn't Knuckles..." Knuckles just kept an eye on his movements.

"Yeah...why aren't you off trying to repair your ship?" Eggman laughed at him, then stopped and smirked after a second.

"You are all such gullible fools!" That word honestly haunted every fiber of his body, he hated hearing that word considering how many times he had been tricked by this very man.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He gritted his teeth and got into a position that signaled he was ready to knock the doctor out on a moments notice.

"I can't tell you that, that would be giving everything away."

"Huh?" Knuckles just shook his head after a moment, then leapt into the air and forced the doctor to the floor, the result of this confused him severely. The doctor's head flew OFF, springs and sparks flew everywhere after a moment. After stepping forward and taking the emerald, the blue one, the machine made a noise. The echidna stumbled backwards and fell, "What's...going on here!"

"Ev...ev...everyyyy...eveeryyy..." The malfunctioning machine let out a deep voice, as would be a CD player slowly dying or running out of batteries, the voice then got high, "Everything...everything...eeevvv..." Deep again.

"Okay! This is definitely not normal...not at _all_!" He whirled and decided telling people about this was probably a more intelligent thing to do that sitting there like a confused moron having no clue what the machine was going to do next. Had Metal Sonic created this? Or had Doctor Eggman?

---

He stared hard at the window, on normal occasions he would have just gone out it, but as was his current situation he just stared into a dark blue, almost black sky. You could see the stars better than usual, that wasn't something commonly seen from where he was standing. "Guess Amy was right, I did need some rest...I'm confused though, wouldn't Mecha have found the chaos emeralds by now...or maybe I'm stupid and I'm overestimating how quickly you could get them all." Sonic let himself slide down the wall into a sitting position after a second, draping his arms over his knees.

"Just...go...SEE." Shadow underestimated the power of the small pink hedgehog as she thrust him into her bedroom after a heated argument about why she couldn't go check to see if Sonic was awake. A dark room, with Sonic, after there awkward little incident this afternoon. Just...great.

"Faker, are you awake?" Sonic looked over to the door, slightly relieved it wasn't Amy, but not at all relieved that it was Shadow.

"Nope." Sarcasm again.

"Just checking." The black hedgehog returned the favor. Shadow scanned the room for the blue hedgehog and his eyes stumbled across him after a second. He was against the wall opposite of the one small window in the room. "Do you feel any better?" Sonic nodded his head.

"I feel well enough." He shrugged his shoulders, "Is Amy mad at me or something?"

"Guess we oughta leave well enough alone, then...You upset her, earlier, I guess...she said she didn't want to come back in here." Sonic smirked at him after a second, then looked past him out the window, then back at him after a quick laugh escaped him.

"So you got stuck with the job, huh? Lucky you." Shadow shrugged.

"Well, it would be different if it was some really hideous fat guy with horrible body odor, but you're just a stupid faker, so it's not like it was some harrowing experience." Sonic laughed at him after that comment, then got a freaked out expression when the image of some fat guy with horrible body odor popped into his head.

"Thanks for the mental image." He stood up, finally. He leaned against a pole on the bed, his right arm and a portion of his right ankle were still wrapped in the white bandages Amy had placed on there. White wasn't a good word for them now, though, considering blood red stains coated parts of each of them.

"Sure." After a second the atmosphere of the room hit him and he jerked his head down and stared awkwardly at the floor, a slight redness covering his cheeks. "Whatever...are you ready to go now, though...because..." He sure helped the awkwardness, if that didn't sound awkward, hell if he knew what did.

"Yeah! I'm fine, now!" Sonic stared off too, he had the same tent to his face now. His words fell together like a child's, when trying to get out of trouble. Shadow nodded his head. "Look...if you're still thinking about..."

"I'm not! Why would I be? It was just an accident!" Shadow's words did the same thing as Sonic's, the two of them weren't looking at each other anymore. Probably a good thing, considering the other's embarrassment would probably just lead to increasing their own, which would start a never ending cycle of getting redder and redder. "Why'd you even bring that up?" His words slowed down, finally. His spoken words matched his thoughts though, _'Why'd he have to bring **that** up!'_

"Guess I'm still thinking about it...but so were you!" The second part was defensive, he clenched his teeth together, "You knew what I was going to say, before I finished." Shadow smiled slightly, it was actually more of a smirk, or somewhere in the middle.

"What else could you have been talking about?" He wanted to run, or sprint, and jump out the window. His thoughts were bugging him, now. Why was he thinking like he was? He didn't want to think like this, but he _was, _he was the ultimate life form, and he couldn't control his own damn thoughts!. He brought his eyes back up to Sonic, who still had no intention of looking up. He tried to kill the flush in his cheeks and stared at the hardwood floor again. His thoughts embarrassed him farther now, he didn't want to admit to himself what passed through his mind when he saw Sonic the second before, but he couldn't very well ignore it. "Heh, y'know...you're pretty damn red."

That just made it worse for Sonic and he shook his head, "...maybe it's a circulatory disease..." Shadow laughed a little bit, he was trying to calm down. The blue hedgehog knew that Shadow was doing a lot better job than he was at being calm. Though, he hadn't noticed the redness in Shadow's cheeks either, namely because he hadn't looked at him.

"A disease? Well, Sonic...maybe you just got _sunburnt._" Sonic half smiled, it was a nervous smile, though. A little annoyance mixed in there as well, as he brought his head forward and shook it slightly, still never looking up. "You know...you're making this awkward." He nodded his head, knowing he probably was, but it was going to be awkward for him no matter what he did. So what the hell?

"Are you telling me it didn't bother you at all, you idiot?" Shadow immediately shook his head.

"No...I didn't say that..." He stared off, then fixed his eyes back on Sonic, "...but that's not really what's bugging me." Finally two emerald green eyes made their way up to Shadow's red ones, a curious expression in them now.

"What's bugging you, then?" Shadow wished he hadn't said anything, but he couldn't take it back now. He needed to say it aloud, anyway.

"I don't know." Of course he had to be a moron, he couldn't just come out and say that he might have actually ...'liked' it to a certain extent. He tried to keep his composure, but the thought of admitting that threw him for a loop. There's no way he could say that, this was Sonic, his rival, a guy! Why would he even think to...think of Sonic that way? He didn't know why, but he was.

"Okay...that's stupid." Shadow laughed. It was. "Are you sure, it's not that you do know, and just don't want to say it?" He shook his head, maybe Sonic could read minds. Wasn't that nice?

"Hah...no."

"You're not sure?"

"Guess not." Sonic jerked his eyes back down, his heart was acting like he had just run around the world six thousand times. He felt completely idiotic, Rouge was right! He did like Shadow! Shadow was a guy, when everyone told him he needed a _mate_, he wasn't expecting that mate to wind up being a guy But, it certainly seemed that way. He liked Shadow. Oddly enough, Shadow acted like...or maybe that was just his imagination going psycho because he was so damn embarrassed. Shadow gritted his teeth and got close enough to him to grab the bandage on his arm, in short, he grabbed Sonic's arm. "Why are you doing this?" It wasn't a forceful grip, but it wasn't gentle either, it was firm enough to allow Shadow to pull Sonic towards him a little ways.

"Doing _what_!" He didn't know how to answer Sonic. He just stared blankly at him for what felt like forever.

"You know...we could probably figure out the problem right now." He didn't let go of Sonic's arm Sonic knew precisely what Shadow was talking about, and quite honestly he thought his rival was completely insane. Unfortunately, he thought himself insane, too.

Sonic blinked, "...as in...are you crazy, Shadow!" Shadow smirked and looked down at Sonic's injury for a moment. He looked back up at the emerald green eyes and nodded his head.

"I thought you would have established that by now, Faker..." Sonic halfway smiled after that, his cheeks were still red as the devil though. His heart jumped and the darker hedgehog's mouth was less than an inch from his own.

"Yeah..." Shadow could feel each one of Sonic's almost labored breaths. _Heat_, he could feel a lot of heat. He watched as Sonic bit his lower lip, each of the held hedgehog's breaths made his skin crawl as the heat from them touched closer to his mouth than it ever had.

'_He's absolutely...adorable.'_

Shadow's thoughts caught him way off guard, but he looked Sonic over for a little while longer. _'I can't be liking this...I can't be...' _Sonic's thoughts were just as mind-bottling. A slight whimper escaped Sonic after a few more seconds, he swore Shadow intended to keep him this close until they both died.

Shadow smirked and laughed quietly at him. "You know, Sonic...I've never seen you act like this before." Sonic tilted his head slightly, but said nothing.

It felt like ages, almost hours before either of them even breathed, Sonic felt the flush in his cheeks doing nothing but worsening, Shadow kept his eyes on Sonic to see what he'd do, his head remained at the angle for a few more seconds then he straightened his head up and responded. "I've never acted like this before." He smiled slightly.

"Never?"

"No." Sonic kept his eyes on Shadow's now. He hadn't, he had never felt like this, acted like this, or...anything like this. His heart was literally racing, he gave Shadow a weak smile after a minute.

"That's funny...I don't think I have either." Sonic tilted his head once again, and almost laughed. The only person he'd ever made act anything like this was Amy, and he figured she acted that way around guys all the time.

"...you haven't?"

"No."

Finally, Shadow just pulled him those few centimeters closer, the green-eyed hedgehog's head was tilted so the way their lips met this time was at a slight angle. Shadow held him that way for a minute, Sonic just blinked for a second but did nothing to stop him from keeping him there. Being almost as naive as Sonic in this department, Shadow took it no further. He let go after a second and smirked, he looked over at Sonic, "Shadow...I think I like you."

Shadow smirked and nodded his head, "I think you do too, Faker..." Sonic looked at him, it didn't seem like it had been such a long time now. But, he wanted to do that again. "...and, I think I like you too."

* * *

That ending took me damn near forever. Guess what? Lots of yaoi, shounen-ai...whatever. Lots of it. You know you thought it was hot, because _I _thought it was hot! Okay, I'm sorry, but give me some credit...even if I kinda like reading it..it's hard to write that stuff. So don't send me any mean reviews...you haven't yet...but just inCASE you decide to be cruel little meanies! I'm trying. I've been doing that scene in my head for awhile, now...so that's why it was so long...that scene, not the chapter. The chapter was almost short! Or...was it? I'm **_confused! _**I wasn't going to post this chapter til I got more reviews, but I'm on 2 people's alert lists and 2 people's favorite story list for this story. So what the heck? ; You should leave reviews, guys...it gives me moral support! Please? ...Well, there ya go. 


	5. It Starts Eyes Closed to Fingers Crossed

_**Chapter 5**_

_**It Starts Eyes Closed To Fingers Crossed **_

Disclaimer: ...it's pathetic that I have to tell you short-term memory-losing idiots every single chapter that I don't own any of these characters, and I'm not bringing in any that I do own! Because I'm lazy! (I just lied! You all suck!)

I don't have any reviews! That SADDENS me, you evilly mean people. But, I'm getting over it and writing another chapter anyway.

(Hey guess what? I didn't even read over this chapter, I totally winged it...so...if it's a little out there, I'm sorry...you are just going to have to LIVE WITH IT. Good day.)

* * *

"Unh, what are they doing in there?" Rouge stood beside Amy who eyed her door fiercely. "They've been in there for like ever, how long can it take someone to check if someone is awake or not." The more mature woman laughed at Amy's fretting.

"Take it easy..." Amy glared at her, then stomped back over to her couch and sulked. The pouting expression she had on her face did not add to the maturity level of her behavior. Rouge looked at the door one last time, what were those two doing anyway? They had been in there since she got there, but she wasn't about to knock on the door and throw one of them into a conniption of sorts.

"I don't want to take it easy, Rouge! Sonic is really getting on my nerves lately! All he ever says is 'go away, Amy!' It's like he hates me or something." Rouge blinked, she hadn't asked Amy what was wrong. But, of course she was left trying to help her feel better anyway. That was just the kind of luck she had.

"He doesn't hate you, Amy..." Amy looked at her after thinking that one over. She snarled slightly under her breath.

Her words were cold and mocking, "He's just got a lot on his mind." Rouge gave her a scornful look after that one.

"You have to take it easy on Sonic, Amy..." Amy rolled her eyes and then gave a resigned sigh and stared up at Rouge, she knew the bat lady was right. But it hurt her to admit that. Why did everything have to be so difficult?

"I know you're right, Rouge...I just like him so much." Rouge nodded her head and patted Amy on the head like she was some sort of a child. Amy swatted at her hand, then glared up at her not wanting to be treated like a little kid.

The older of the two women just smirked at Amy and shook her head, "I know you like him. That's why you have to give him a little room to breathe sometimes, Amy...heroes are like that!" She smiled slightly, managing to get a returned smile from Amy in response, this pleased her.

The exasperated girl just nodded her head and saw back against the cushion of the couch as she looked back to the door, "That doesn't answer the underlying question of what they're doing though." Rouge shook her head, no it didn't.

Another bang on Amy's front door kept them from thinking about it much longer. "Aw! Now who is it?" Rouge made her way over to the door.

---

Sonic put his hand on one of his ears and pulled on it, who looked over to Shadow, "...great, we have that established." Shadow laughed and crossed his arms, looking into those two emerald green eyes once again. "But, what now? I'm not about to run out there and tell everybody I just kissed you!"

"Actually, Faker...I kissed you." Shadow just got a cocky smirk on his face after that, and Sonic got slightly red. Shadow smiled at the younger hedgehog's expression.

"Whatever, Shadow! You know exactly what I mean!" Shadow found it somewhat bemusing that Sonic didn't mind one bit when Shadow called him faker. He just shrugged his shoulders, but then nodded his head.

"Well, whatever...they don't have to know everything...if they ask, we'll tell them." Sonic gave him an immediate scowl after that one. His cheeks were still slightly red, but he was definitely better off than before Shadow had kissed him.

"You're stupid, you know they're going to ask what we were doing." The black hedgehog had to admit Sonic had a point on that one. He gestured to prove that he was right, but seemed to give no initial signs of answering. "So...oh well, if they figure it out, they figure it out." Shadow smiled and nodded his head. He grabbed Sonic's arm again as he walked by him, though.

"Wait...I'm confused, so what exactly...?" Sonic smiled back at him for a second. Then just shrugged his shoulders. "That's not an answer, Faker."

"...I told you before I liked you, Shadow...and way more than a friend ever would...and you told me the same thing...so...as you said before, maybe we ought to just leave well enough alone and go with that for a little while?" The red eyed hedgehog seemed to like that idea as he smiled and nodded one more time.

"But..." He pulled the blue hedgehog back one more time and pulled the stunt for the second time. Less dramatic this time, but leaving the same feeling of utter giddiness beneath Sonic's blue fur. "What about that? Can I do that?"

Sonic looked down, red, then looked back up to his eyes. He grinned after a second of mulling over it and nodded his head, "Yeah, Shadow...you can do that." Shadow smirked and brushed past him, leaving him to get the redness to subside from his cheeks, though Shadow was still shaking off the feeling again as well. To be perfectly honest, the mere sight of the blue hedgehog was speeding his heart rate up. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed how adorable Sonic was before, or if he had, how he hid it from himself so well.

He opened the door and got a look from Amy, Rouge and Knuckles, "...wow, I didn't know we were scheduling a party! Why didn't you guys tell me?" Amy scowled at him and walked over there.

"Very funny, Shadow! Where's Sonic?" Shadow made a face at her and gestured with him thumb behind him to the hedgehog that had just regained his own composure.

"I'm right here, Amy." Shadow walked by Amy and over to Rouge and Knuckles, who seemed to be in the middle of a very important conversation. Of course, it was about Eggman, Shadow seriously hated that guy sometimes.

"What took him so long to get you up?" Amy cocked her head to the side and stared at the blue hedgehog curiously. He just put a hand on her head and pushed her head back, slightly playfully. She smiled, glad he was at least acknowledging her now.

"It didn't take him long at all." She just put her hands on her hips and roller her eyes at him, if he didn't want to tell her, that was just fine. No, that wasn't just fine. That was going to bug her now.

"I don't understand it at all...it was a robot of Eggman...but it was so real..." Rouge stared at Knuckles for a long time, thinking about what could have transpired near the Master Emerald. Shadow looked at them, back and forth, back and forth. Then, he ended up getting dizzy and having to just stick with Knuckles.

"Did it ever occur to you that he might have just made a robot of himself?" Knuckles returned Shadow's glance. That had occurred to him, but why would he have wanted to make a robot of himself? Shouldn't he have been concentrating of trying to get Metal Sonic back under control?

"Yeah, but why would he wanna do that?" Shadow shrugged and looked to Rouge to see if she had any ideas. She didn't seem to, so he decided to speak up again.

"...well, what happened exactly?" Knuckles told the events that had gone on while he was guarding the Master Emerald. Shadow seemed interested in what he had to say and Knuckles could tell something had entered his mind.

"So, you have the chaos emerald?" Knuckles quickly handed it to Shadow, it had been on the floor beside him. Shadow had not noticed it, oddly enough. "Knuckles, so you left the Master Emerald unprotected with that little robot near it?" The echidna's eyes got huge as soon as Shadow got finished speaking. He had left there with that robot, he had been in such a rush to leave he hadn't even been thinking about the Master Emerald!

"Dammit! I gotta go make sure nothing happened to it! I'll be back later!" He ran out the door in quite a fast manner. It was night time, so Rouge had to stop herself from worrying about him slightly.

Shadow noted Sonic beside him now, "Where's Knuckles going in such a hurry?" Shadow smirked and shook his head.

"The Master Emerald." Sonic smirked at that thought, then eyed Rouge, stifled a laugh. She looked worry, how very unlike Rouge.

"Figures." He looked at Shadow to respond to his comment, then back over to Rouge. He gestured with his head to the woman and Shadow shook his warily, warning the blue hedgehog not to inquire any further. The smirk on his face, proved Sonic was not going to heed Shadow's subtle warning. "Rouge...worried about him?" Rouge jerked her head over to the green-eyed hedgehog.

Her cheeks flushed the same color as her name, "W-worried? I thought you could have figured out by now that I never get worried." The smirk on Sonic's face just widened as he shook his head skeptically.

"Look worried to me." Rouge glared at Shadow, she was not in the mood to be ganged up on by these two at the moment. How come they never teased Knuckles about liking her? Because they were evil! She was convinced both of them were completely evil. She sighed, and turned towards Amy hoping the other female here would come to her defense. Amy did come overt here, but she wasn't any help in the defense category.

Shadow had to give Sonic due credit on the fact that he did get Rouge flustered enough to not ask what they had been doing in the room for so long, he wondered how long they actually had been in there. It felt like forever, but it couldn't have been too long or they would have come in seeing if Sonic and him were still alive. "What makes you morons think I care what happens to that stupid echidna? The only reason I hang around him...is because I think the Master Emerald happens to be really pretty."

"I bet that's the reason." Sonic crossed his arms and smirked at the flustered woman. Amy giggled and patted Rouge on the shoulder, she looked at Sonic and Shadow. She wondered what the two of them were planning to do now. She met Sonic's eyes and gave him a weak smile, he just gave her a curious look. She wanted to knock him across the head, why did guys have to be so...stupid?

"It's all right, Rouge, they're just trying to get on your nerves." Rouge turned to her and nodded her head.

"Yeah, well...it's working wonders..." She turned back to the two males in the room after a few minutes, "Congrats, guys...you did a great job at what you were trying to do, idiots."

"Thanks." Their responses came simultaneously. Rouge just sighed in complete frustration. Males, they were just so damn annoying.

"Rouge, why do you have to be so mean?" Sonic gave her a puppy dog face and then just smirked, he laughed for a second and turned "Well, I think we have some metal ass to kick, don't we?" Shadow nodded his head.

"Yes, we do." Amy nearly tackled Sonic, though all she was doing was hugging the poor hedgehog. He smiled weakly and patted her on the back. He wondered if she was going to say something, didn't look like it. Shadow tried to be patient, but after what felt like a minute, he coaxed her off of Sonic. "Amy..." His voice was a little impatient.

Sonic grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back after a second. He smiled and ruffled her hair after a second, she just looked at him and Shadow for a second. "Just don't go getting yourselves killed, okay, guys?" Shadow nodded his head. Sonic knew Amy needed a little more reassurance than that though.

"Nothing ever happens, you know that, Amy! So don't worry about it." She smiled and took a deep breath, she felt like if she let him leave. She was going to lose him forever. Why in the world was she feeling so dramatic all of a sudden? Maybe it was from lack of Cream or something.

"Just be careful." Her green eyes searched Sonic's for something she might could use, to lift her spirits just a little bit. Nothing but a skeptical look and a forced smile.

"You worry to much, Amy..." Shadow walked towards the door, and opened it. "Hey, Knuckles wouldn't want to come, right?" Sonic turned towards him and thought on this for a second, while he made his way to the door.

"He'll find us if he just has an overpowering urge." That earned him an interesting look from the black and red hedgehog.

---

Knuckles gasped, the robot and the Master Emerald were gone. He had no idea what to do, he stared around for a long time. Hearing a twig snap disturbed him. His eyes scanned the area cautiously, but he didn't detect even the slightest movement. "Damn! How could I have let this happen? I'm supposed to be the protector of the Master Emerald!"

"You're just not very good at what you do then, are you?" Knuckles didn't recognize the voice. It was that of a female, a seductive female by the sound of her voice. His eyes searched and searched but found not a trace of where the voice was emanating from. It seemed to echo off of nothing. He couldn't trace it to save his life.

"Who's there?" Wow, that was stupid. Like they were just going to give him their autobiography. Disembodied voices always answered that question when asked. He thought over the idiocy of his last remark when a black form stuck out to him. It was fast, fast enough so that his eyes lost it again.

"Do you really think I'm going to answer that question for you?" Knuckles snarled under his breath. A smarter person would have ran, but this was Knuckles the Echidna, and last time he had left this location the Master Emerald had been stolen. This person speaking to him might have been the person who took it and he certainly wasn't going to run from them.

"Guess not." He managed to make out another sort of sound, it sounded almost as if it came from behind him. Knuckles immediately spun on his heels and saw nothing once again. He was becoming increasingly frustrated with this situation. The voice didn't speak up for a long time after that, but the noises coming from around him grew far more frequent.

He jerked his head at last to see that black figure emerge, only to force him to realize that it wasn't black at all. It was almost Tails' color, it was a vixen! Knuckles jolted back, he didn't trust anyone. No matter how harmless they looked, he eyed her up and down though. She had Tails' color fur and just one simple tail, her eyes were a midnight blue and her ears were tipped back, as was her tail. As she gave him a slight grin, he could make out her two canines immediately. They were sharp, looking a lot like Sonic and Shadow's. "Who're...you?"

She smirked, "My name's Faye!" He blinked, the seductive tone had left. He didn't see how it had escaped such a childish looking mouth. Little Ms. Faye looked like nothing more than a female version of Tails. He felt immediately prone to keep her from ever meeting Tails, surely they would fall madly in love and have six or seven kids, and that mental image was just too much.

"Yeah...why are you bothering me?" Even Knuckles slacked off on the paranoia, I mean, she didn't look like she was capable of hurting a fly. She blew the two random streaks of hair that hung in her eyes out of her face.

"I saw who took the Master Emerald!" Knuckles seemed interested enough.

"Yeah, so who?"

She smirked at him, "I can't tell you that, silly...that would take all the fun out of everything!" Knuckles eyed her immediately, purple eyes looking slightly perturbed. That robot, isn't that what the Eggman robot had said? Could this vixen really be someone to fear? If he ever told Sonic of this suspicion he would surely get laughed out of existence.

"Oh...I think you better tell me." He got into a position ready to fight now, she just shook her head playfully.

"I'm not going to fight you, mister...but you can try and catch me." She ran off, the little...wench ran off. He growled and started after her. He was very much not in the mood to play games, the master emerald was missing, and little miss pris wanted to play tag.

---

"She really likes you." Sonic winced, he just shook his head slightly after a moment. He looked over at Shadow. "But, I guess that's not big news to you, hm?" Not at all, she only used to chase him at every possible moment of every possible hour of every possible day. He smiled slightly at Shadow.

"I know she likes me...and I like her too." Shadow looked at him now, slightly confused, Sonic didn't even have to get the look to know he was going to get to explain things. He hated explaining things.

"I told you I liked you before." Shadow nodded, did Sonic expect him to have forgotten that? "I don't think I phrased it right, though...because I like Amy...she's a good friend." Now, Shadow was very interested in what the blue hedgehog had to say. Maybe Sonic could help him figure out what he meant when he said that he liked Sonic, he knew he liked him a lot more than a friend.

"Sonic..."

"I don't even know what you are, though...I don't like Amy like I like you." Sonic gritted his teeth and stared furiously at the ground, "You're annoying, Shadow...I tried so hard...and so long to like Amy like that, the same way I like you...and then, it just hit me when I was with you. I don't want to hurt Amy..." Shadow quirked an eyebrow at his struggling partner, he could tell now that he was tongue-tied as he fought with himself over the right words.

"Faker, I know you wanna be the hero...but if you...you can't lie to her, I told you before, she'll live." Sonic gave him a look. "...maybe...well, can we set her up with someone else? Wow! I am annoying!" His green-eyed rival grinned at him and nodded his head.

He shook his head, "I can't worry about her, now...I have to save her physical life, before I go worrying about her love life!" This jerked Shadow back to reality too, "What...the...hell?" Shadow's face proved he was thinking along those same lines. It was where Eggman's ship had been, it wasn't Eggman's ship anymore...it was a wormhole.

"...that looks like a lot of fun." Sonic's eye twitched slightly as he stared at it. "I know you want to run stupidly into it, yelling some idiotic battle cry...but I think we really ought to tell everyone about this."

Sonic looked extremely annoyed after that, "And be like Tails, yay!" Shadow shook his head, he didn't like that idea very much at all. He made fun of Tails, thus he could not be like Tails.

"Not yay! I like your plan better, lets run into it." Sonic grabbed him by the arm, stopping him, he wasn't sure if Shadow was seriously planning on that or not, but he didn't feel like taking any chances. Shadow closed his eyes in irritation and whirled to see Sonic looking innocently at him.

"I know you don't like being like the little 'kid', but that would just be completely retarded." Shadow nodded his head, he was fully aware of that fact. He looked at Sonic for a moment, wouldn't it be fun to just have little walkie-talkies where the could contact everyone. But, no, they didn't, they had to go individually find all the morons before they could do anything.

"Fine, be a loser, Faker!" Since Sonic was already holding on to his arm to keep him from sprinting into the wormhole, he decided to go ahead and warp. Since Tails had been their topic on conversation, he smirked as they appeared directly into the busted Tornado.

"Uh-oh...Tails, not taking proper care of your planes." Sonic smirked at Miles Prower who was just happy as anything to see him.

"Wow, you two are a sight for sore eyes." He gestured, annoyed, to Cream who sat in the back crying because they weren't getting to do anything. Shadow moaned and turned to walk away, again, Sonic grabbed him and pulled him back. Tails smiled, "So what's up, guys?"

"We found a wormhole."

"Ew, worms..." The three of them knew Cream was going to say that.

"A wormhole? ...what?" Shadow nodded his head, agreeing with Sonic's previous statement. He thought about it for a minute though, maybe there was a different name for it that wouldn't have confused Tails so severely.

"Well...it was a shining light, that looked like if we touched it we weren't gonna be here anymore." Sonic nodded his head, Tails thought about it for a second.

"Where was it?" Tails looked at either of them for an answer. Cream was all up in frenzy, she jumped out the Tornado. As if this was going to allow her to listen better or something. Shadow wanted so badly to kick her, but he suppressed the urge and snarled at her.

"Where Eggman's ship crashed earlier." Cream gave Sonic a big-eyed look, he tried to force a smile but it didn't work so he shooed at her with his foot. Shadow found that vaguely amusing, but everything ceased to be funny when he saw the new bane of his existence, that...CHEESE. He just shut his eyes in irritation and kept his eyes focused on Tails.

"I guess we need to go through it then, but...I didn't think Eggman mattered? What about Mecha?" He looked Sonic up and down, the blue hedgehog just shook his head.

"I think this is bigger than just Mecha, Tails...it's just a feeling I got earlier." Tails smiled and nodded his head. He looked mournfully at the Tornado and shook his head.

"You're the boss, Sonic...but, I guess...I'm not going to be able to use this anymore, not right now anyway." He gave the Tornado a weak smile and hopped out of it, "But what about...?" He was looking in the direction of the bunny, who was expecting to come along now. Why had they said all of this where she could hear?

"I'm coming, too! Right?" Sonic and Shadow both looked at Tails for some help. They both sucked when it came to letting people down easy. So, Tails slowly lowered his head and just sighed.

---

After managing to gather all of "Faker's incompetent friends" as Shadow so bluntly put it, and several failed attempts to find Knuckles. Shadow looked at the remaining four of them, thank God they had managed to get Cream to go away via her own mother. "So, are we all going to go through there? Because you guys can't let Faker do anything by himself." Rouge glared at Shadow and nodded her head firmly.

"Yes, Shadow! We're all going, because we all have helped out before, and we'll all help out, now." Sonic stood behind her and mocked her the whole time she spoke, this drew a smile from Shadow's lips. Amy shook her head at the three of them, then looked at Tails and nodded her head.

"We won't be any trouble, Shadow! We promise!" She smiled and shook her head, Shadow wondered why she never used that hammer he had seen her use before. It had to at least hurt somewhat when she hit someone with it, it was huge!

He simply nodded his head, "I'll hold you to that, Amy." She smiled weakly at him and saluted, Sonic just gave her a look and shook his head. It didn't take long at all for them to get through the stupid golden flashing hole, the moment the touched them they were transported. It was the ARK! That wormhole led straight to the ARK.

"The...ARK?" Shadow snarled and glared around for a moment, everything was the exact same as it always was. Why, why did everything lead him back to the ARK? Why was he always here? He hated this place! It brought back so many haunting memories.

"Shadow, I think the ARK has a serious crush on you, buddy." Sonic smirked at him and he just sulked. It probably did, just toadd to his problems. He could have a giant space colony following him around with holographic hearts flying up from it. But, knowing the citizens of Earth they'd probably find it completely and totally normal.

"Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Rouge and Amy Rose!" Everyone's head jerked at their own names, they didn't even have to look to recognize that annoying voice. That gravelly, overly optimistic voice. That voice that was probably the reason for over twenty-five percent of all suicides.

"Vector..." Sonic hissed, the large neon green gator stepped out of the shadows. So, now Team Chaotix was on the ARK too? This day just kept getting better and better!

Tails smiled and walked over to him, "What exactly are you doing on the ARK, Vector?" Shadow raised an eyebrow in his direction as well, as he wanted the answer to that too.

A cheerful voice also came out of the shadows, yep, the entire little squad must have been here. "Espio and Vector can't seem to find the escape pods to get off here, and Shadow left us here last time without helping his down via chaos control!" That hadn't been an accident on Shadow's part, he didn't think he'd be back up on the ARK to answer for it though.

"Aha...well, if it isn't the whole gang! All gathered back on the ARK again."

"Doctor...what's going on here!" Rouge snarled, and Charmy and Vector looked around in a very confused manner. They hadn't heard him up here before.

Shadow put his hand on his forehead, "This is really beginning to give me a headache." His green eyed mate just nodded, exasperated.

* * *

...hi and BYE. I'm almost finished with this story...well, two more chapters. Isn't that awesome? SURE IT IS. You're just a loser who no one likes. Or I'm a loser that no one likes, regardless...damn, who reads the stupid author's notes anyway?


	6. Back To The Remedy

_**Chapter 6**_

_**Back to the Remedy**_

Disclaimer: I hate disclaimers, I don't own any of the Sonic characters! I own that...uh...Faye person. Yep, because I'm cool like that.

I'm. Absolutely. Freezing. And I seriously need reviews guys, come onnn...please? Fine, be mean. I never liked you anyway, you jerks. I'm gonna go find a corner now.

---

"That sounded like-..." The frustrated hedgehog didn't allow the gator to finish his sentence, it sounded like Dr. Eggman. Who else was it going to be? His freaking mother.

"That IS Dr. Robotnick." Vector looked at Shadow and nodded his head, like Shadow needed some kind of support in the fact that he was right. Amy smiled at Shadow's frustration and shook her own head. Poor thing, she knew the ARK was the last place that black hedgehog wanted to be.

"Well, well, well...it seems the five of you have fallen perfectly into my little trap." Shadow's right eye twitched as he suppressed the urge to scream. What little trap was he even talking about? He took deep breaths, so as to not go insane with anger. This place had infuriated him, ever since he stopped that black comet from destroying the Earth. He didn't want to be there, he didn't want to remember Maria, Gerald, any of them. He wanted to forget it all. How could he forget it if he was standing in the very location he had spoken with them?

"What trap, Egg-head?" Sonic was annoyed to a degree, not angry by any means. Just annoyed with the fact that Eggman might have outsmarted them this time. He was getting really sick of playing the hero, but it looked like he was going to have to do it again. This triggered a laugh from the egotistical doctor.

"You, see, boys...you have the only chaos emeralds I need. Mecha has done a fine job of getting me the rest of them, you have the three I need." Tails blinked, so they had been wrong. Eggman hadn't lost control of Mecha this time. He knew this was just as important as he made it out to be.

"Hn, so why'd you have to bring us to the ARK, Doctor?" They didn't know where to direct their questions, so they were just looking up, or around, as the spoke. Another laugh via the doctor ensued this comment from Shadow.

"Because I know you like it so much up here, Shadow." The red-eyed hedgehog snarled furiously after this, "Not to mention, I can use the Eclipse cannon to blow the Earth to pieces."

Shadow let out a grunt, "How original..." A mocking gesture, indeed. He had every right to it though, the Eclipse cannon? How damned cliche!

Sonic paused as he thought, but Eggman wanted to...take over the world. This couldn't have possibly been Eggman? Or could it have been? "Then I can make each of you watch each other die slowly and painfully! I'll make sure to make it as gory as possible." The so-called Eggman's cackle filled the center room of the ARK.

Shadow gritted his teeth, he just closed his eyes, as he attempted to contain his own rage, "Sadistic."

"It is, isn't it?" A click and the voice was gone, the sizzling sound the intercom had previously been making silenced. Shadow looked at everyone else in the large room. Amy sunk to her knees and stared down at the clear floor, leading straight out into the open expanse of space itself.

Sonic met his eyes once he looked at him, "...now what?" Shadow shook his head, he didn't have any answers. Yes, he had been told by Black Doom how he had been created. He remembered Maria, the biolizard, Gerald Robotnick. But, did they really think he could recall the complex little details of this huge space colony. Not a chance.

Amy shook her head furiously, "We can't die! We have to find away out of here! Can't you warp us, Shadow...just use chaos control?" Shadow looked at her then looked back at the emerald around his neck. They could do that, he wasn't sure leaving now was the best of plans. But, as he remembered, this was one of the emeralds and you needed all seven to access the full power of the Eclipse Cannon. He concentrated for a second, then stared blankly at the emerald. It had absolutely no energy.

"It's...not working." Sonic shook his head and turned away, looking around the large room. Staring in bewilderment at all the doors that could lead to any different place on the colony.

"Yeah, if _Eggman _managed to get us up here, I'm sure he found a way to disable Shadow from using chaos control to leave that easily." Shadow sighed and just nodded his head, he looked over to Amy who was shivering. Why had they brought her? That was the stupidest thing he thought he had ever allowed to happen. For now, the threat of each of them being slowly killed fell on deaf ears.

"Don't worry, Amy! We'll be fine!" Tails put his hand on Amy's shoulder, she looked at him and gave him a smile through a few tears. He nodded to her, trying to comfort her, but a small furry fox didn't give off the most protective of vibes.

Rouge sighed and clenched her fists, she seriously regretted leaving that planet without Knuckles now. She had never wanted to see anybody as bad as she wanted to see him right now. Trying to keep her composure so she didn't wind up like Amy, she took a few deep breaths and looked to the two supposed heroes on the ARK, "Well, guys...it looks like you're gonna have to figure something out fast." They both nodded.

Vector put his hand to his forehead, "Aw...man, I bet that's where Espio disappeared off to." He caught Sonic's attention with that, the blue hedgehog's head whipped in his direction now. He quirked an eyebrow.

"Espio disappeared, Vector?" The gator nodded, the threat wasn't exactly on deaf ears now, just hard of hearing ears. Shadow made a face and shrugged.

"Yeah!" Charmy drooped his head as Vector responded. He shook his head regretfully.

"So I've been stuck here with only Vector...I think I'm going insane." Vector gritted his teeth at the small bee. Shadow shot Sonic a concerned glance, he seemed pretty caught up in his own thoughts about the situation though.

"Then I guess we'll just have to be a little more cautious than usual." Shadow looked back at the rest of the little clan. Shadow snapped at Vector a moment later when he tried to speak again. He grabbed his snout after he didn't heed his warnings about shutting up. "Vector...please, I'm not in the mood for your voice!" He released it, and flung Vector's head back. Sonic chuckled slightly at that.

"Someone's testyy..." Charmy sang and buzzed around, for someone who was on the brink of insanity, he sure was cheerful. Shadow snarled at him too. Amy slowly began to get a grip on what was going on. She couldn't just fall apart, she promised Shadow she wouldn't get in the way and she was determined to keep that promise. She slowly got to her feet and gulped.

"Maybe we oughta split up." She received 'you're-an-idiot' looks from three of the six people in the room, and Tails just didn't give her one because he was too nice. She sighed and looked at them all, "Think about it! If we walk around here in a little huddle, we'll never figure anything out! And we're not going to get anywhere by just standing here yelling at each other either. We won't go alone, we'll go in pairs."

Shadow inhaled slowly and looked into her green eyes after a moment, then nodded his head, "Amy, I think you might actually have a point...the sooner we get off the ARK, the better." She smiled and nodded her head, she wasn't in the way!

Vector decided to speak up, despite being warned on two occasions not to, "But, who's going to go with who? Me and Charmy'll go together! We've stuck together through being up here! So why change things now?" Rouge smiled and nodded her head, she didn't think it was necessary for the black hedgehog to be so mean to him.

"Agreed, and no one else wants to deal with either of you." Shadow managed to keep that low through gritted teeth. He looked up, Amy had Sonic by the hand. She was staring steadily at him, wanting to meet his eyes. This was her only chance to be alone with him. She knew it was wrong to be thinking like this when their lives could be in danger, but she couldn't help it. She loved him, she really did.

Sonic shot Shadow a quick glance, one kind of in search of sympathy. Shadow just smiled at him and shook his head, "Go with her, Faker." Sonic gave him a sulking expression and he laughed. Amy smiled and he returned a slightly weaker smile right back at her.

"Uh...?" He looked at Tails and Rouge, "Guess that leaves..._us_?" Rouge nodded, unfortunately there were ten doors leading out into different directions. There were only three groups of them, so, they were going to be at a serious loss regardless.

The three newly formed groups set off through the farthest doors from one another as possible, in hopes of figuring something out. Rouge kept her eyes on Shadow for a long time, he glanced over to her and gave her a 'what-do-you-want' look. She just looked back at the ground. Tails dragged his feet behind them, _lucky Amy_. That would mean two guys in this group that thought that.

After no longer than five minutes of feeling completely idiotic as he was being followed by Rouge and Tails, Tails piped up, "...hey, guys...just hold on...I thought I..." He was already halfway down another hallway before he finished.

"Tails, wait!" Shadow watched Rouge call after him, but he didn't really care one way or the other. She glanced over at him, and then just sighed. Tails obviously knew what he was doing. Not to mention, this was Shadow. She told Sonic she had been afraid to ask him anything like she asked Sonic just two days earlier. "Hey, Shadow?" He glanced over at her. "You like him, don't you?"

Shadow just quirked an eyebrow, "Are you implying I like Tails?" Rouge laughed slightly, they both knew he didn't think that's what she was asking. But, Rouge should have known the Ultimate Life Form would throw that out there.

"Not him, Sonic, you dumbass!" Shadow gave her a half smirk and looked off down the hall Tails had run. He still didn't answer her question, well, he basically actually did answer her question. As if that wasn't a good enough response. "You do?" She questioned this as if he had said yes aloud.

Shadow nodded his head slightly, then looked at her. "I like girls...it's so weird. I never in a thousand years thought I'd like a _guy._ It's weird...and really scary." Rouge raised an eyebrow at him.

"I think it's hot." He gave her a look.

"You would."

Rouge laughed and then eyed him for another minute, he wasn't looking at her anymore. He looked like he was thinking about something. It may have been Sonic, Maria, or he may have been questioning why the floor was blue? Hell if she knew. "Sh-..."

He cut her off, "I don't think I'm gay...because...other than Sonic, the idea of that is the grossest thing that has ever entered my mind." She smiled sweetly at him, Shadow was honestly really cute. Especially when he was thinking, she always had a slight crush on him, not one that would just break her heart to know he didn't like her that way, but still, like you would fall in love with one of the heroes you see on TV, that you know truly don't exist.

She giggled slightly, "You're funny..." His glance jerked up towards her.

"Rouge, did you just..._giggle_?" Shadow was officially disturbed, he liked a guy and Rouge giggled, yep, the world was ending. He was absolutely positive of this fact.

She smiled slightly at him and shook her head, "Why is that so weird, Shadow?" She put one hand on her hip and had that cocky, I'm so much better than you stance. He rolled his eyes at it, and she thought it was odd that he found it weird that she giggled. Yeah, look at this woman, she was probably more mature and full of herself than he would ever be. She didn't give him a chance to respond though, "Do you mind if we split up, I don't think Tails is coming back...and...I want to..."

"It's fine." He didn't want to know what she wanted to go off and do, but he figured if he was alone, maybe a memory would strike him and he could suddenly recall where the escape routes were. A minuscule chance, but a chance nonetheless. He whirled and started off, he felt her eyes burning into his back for the longest time. It was an awkward feeling, but he tried to just ignore it.

---

"Just...one time..." He stared into green eyes that almost matched his own, she wanted to kiss him. He couldn't, he didn't want to kiss her. What if he got that same feeling with two completely different people? It would mean that anything up until now was void, how could he feel it twice, though? It felt great, he wasn't going to lie, but then...what would he do? What about Shadow? But, now, what about Amy? He stared blankly at her. "Just a kiss, that's all." He could feel her breath now. Her voice was so soft, as she ran her hands down his arm. Her skin was like her voice, soft as silk almost.

"Just a kiss." He echoed her words, hesitation flooding his own, he kept his eyes locked on hers. She gave him another weak smile, she had to know. Could she make him feel like she felt? A kiss, that would have to sort things out for her. Maybe she didn't love him.

She finally nodded her head, his eyes were so pretty. She raised her mouth, close enough to his where all he had to do was give a little. It wouldn't be a big deal, he knew that. He had kissed Shadow, he could kiss Amy. Then a feeling of dread entered his mind, he _had_ kissed Shadow, and he _had liked_ it. What if Shadow saw him kiss Amy? Even if he didn't see, the fact that he had done it. But, what if he didn't feel anything? His stomach churned at the thought, what if he did? "Sonic, I want to know..."

His eyes drifted to the floor, he felt her grip tighten on his shoulders. He could feel the desire flowing through her body, radiating from it, yet Shadow kept flashing through his mind. It wasn't like he pledged any loyalty to Shadow. His own words played like a scratched record through his mind.

"_...so...as you said before, maybe we ought to just leave well enough alone and go with that for a little while?_"

For how long? What did Shadow think that meant, what had _he_ meant? "Just leave well enough alone", right. She ran her hand down his face, she wanted him to kiss her. He could feel it, he couldn't refuse her. Just a kiss, one kiss. "Are you sure...you want to know, Amy?" She nodded her head and stared at him for a long time, a slight smile crossed her lips. A real one. He didn't want to know, he didn't want to know one little bit.

"I'm sure, Sonic...I want to know. Don't you?" No. No, he didn't. He shrugged his shoulders just slightly, she knew she just had to push a little more. Just get a few more inches and their lips would connect, and Amy would get the answers she longed for. He took a deep breath.

"Are you going to..." He stared into those emerald green eyes for longer than he ever had, she stared at him curiously and shook her head. Her heart was going like it did every time she was near him, she had to know. But, she wasn't going to do this. If Sonic didn't put forth any effort, it wasn't going to be worth it, she'd have her answer before they kissed.

"Sonic...you...please, just this once." Just once. That was all she wanted. Why couldn't he comply with that simple request? Why was the thought of Shadow haunting him like a memory of a dead relative? He gritted his teeth, and tensed up. She ran her hand down his arms again and tried to loosen him up. "One time."

He leaned forward, and their lips finally connected. It was nothing like when Sonic had kissed Shadow, it was completely different. His heart didn't race the same way it had that night, nothing. He felt absolutely nothing, he didn't want to tell Amy that, but...nothing at all. There was an up and down side to that, so...it wasn't just the nervousness of kissing or being kissed. It was Shadow, that cocky black and red hedgehog had _made_ him feel that way. He pulled back from her after a second. "...did you get the answer you were looking for?" He questioned her, his voice firm and somber. That was the Sonic she knew, he never seemed to change. To just let himself fall into a moment, that's what she thought.

She had fallen hard into that moment, her heart felt like it was about to burst. She could feel every single beat, quicker than the usual pace in her chest. Her cheeks burnt, they were on fire. Amy smiled and nodded at him, she searched him for any kind of a sign. Nothing. Had he not felt that? How could he have not felt that? She desperately hoped he felt something from it, her heart almost sank. Tears burned furiously at her eyes, like little knives sticking into her sockets. "Yes. Did you...?" She didn't get to finish, Sonic whirled at the sound of the door's mechanical sound.

"Cute." Shadow's red eyes stared hard into Sonic's for a moment. He couldn't quite get the vibes he was sending, was he mad? He couldn't put much out there as Amy was standing right next to Sonic. "What are you..._dating_?" The voice was cruel, sarcastic, outright mean. He was mad, Sonic heard the tone. He really didn't like that tone at all.

"That's ridiculous." He sent him a hot glance. How? Why had Shadow been there? This huge colony and he was watching the two of them! Why wasn't he with Rouge and Tails? Where were they even? Why had he gone and let Amy kiss him.

"Ridiculous?" Now Amy's feelings were hurt, she stared at him. He wouldn't look over to her though. He couldn't just throw out at her that he happened to have a crush on this guy! Shadow, yeah, he was just going to throw that up in Amy's face right after they kissed. Sorry, Amy, you're kiss made me gay. That was what he was going to say, yeah, right. Sonic didn't respond though, he didn't deny that's what he said or meant.

Shadow grabbed her by the arm and looked at her for a moment, "Look, he didn't mean that...can I talk to him for a second alone?" She looked up at him and nodded her head. Confoundment danced through Sonic's emerald orbs, now Shadow defended him? What was thisguy thinking about? The red eyes were really piercing from the right angle, or maybe it was his mood. Great, that's what he wanted to do, be alone with Shadow. Amy left the room, she did her best to soothe her curiosity by telling herself it was wrong to spy, but it didn't work.

"Got a girlfriend, now, Faker?" He had a mixture of hurt and fury lingering about in his voice. Shadow cocked an eyebrow at him, the blue hedgehog growled and shook his head. He let Shadow fume for a moment, just glaring at him. When he saw the look in his eyes soften up, that's when Sonic decided to talk. To explain.

"She wanted to see if...she felt anything, if_ I_ felt anything." Shadow stared at him now, the look severely softened. It wasn't going to get that same original anger it had, it was the softening that you could never properly build back up. He actually just got slightly worried, what if Sonic had felt something when Amy kissed him?

"...did you?" Sonic guessed Shadow really didn't care what Amy thought of the situation, he looked into those crimson eyes for a really long time. A slight smile crossed his lips as he shook his head, the breath Shadow took then was shaky, so utterly relieved that he seemed willing to forget that he was stuck on the ARK, the space colony where all of his haunting memories dwelled, and that Sonic had just let his long time friend kiss him.

Amy stared into the glass, the glass so easily seen through. The glass Sonic wished he had been more knowledgeable of. They were simply talking, she saw the gentle smile on Sonic's face. A spark of jealousy touched her for no more than a second and then quickly subsided. Shadow returned the smile, he certainly didn't stay mad for very long. Shadow seemed to have been mad that they kissed, did he like her? Or did he like Sonic? Confusion in many different forms flew through Amy's mind as she tried to sort everything out. "So...they really could..." She stared blankly at them, wishing they would do something to give her a sign. They knew she could see right through the glass, they knew she was looking. She knew her hero well enough to know he would never flaunt anything like that in her face. She wouldn't get her sign.

Sonic looked to the floor, then back to Shadow, "I told you I liked you. Why would I have felt anything with her?" Confidence, did he hear confidence in the azure hedgehog's voice? Though, Shadow didn't know the answer to Sonic's question, he just knew it scared the hell out of him that Sonic _could _have felt something. He didn't realize the thought of losing someone could scare him like this. He shook it off, then just smirked at Sonic.

"You were the one who was all confused on what 'like' was." He grinned as Sonic gave him an adorable look of skepticism. He glanced back at Amy for a split second, then turned back to Sonic. He cocked his head slightly to the side, notifying Sonic that he had a job to do though. The green-eyed hedgehog nodded his head.

"I like you different than I like her...or anyone else." Shadow shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head. He could definitely relate to that, he couldn't help feel slightly bad for the pink hedgehog outside the room though. He knew she loved Sonic, he hated to hurt her, she was so alike with Maria, even he realized this. He didn't want Sonic to hurt her either, but better her than himself. Damn, he felt selfish.

Shadow just hit him upside the head and smiled, "You're one of a kind, Sonic the hedgehog." He whirled, his thoughts in something of a jumble.

"Thanks! I get that a lot!" He has a cocky air about his tone. With his back turned, Shadow just looked back with his eyes and rolled them. "I saw that." He knew Sonic had seen it though, it was his intent for him to see it. The mechanical door smoothly slid open.

Amy met them at the door, "Did you enjoy your little 'alone talk'?" She smiled innocently at them, Shadow raised an eyebrow at her. As if she hadn't been staring at them, keeping them from doing absolutely anything interesting. Her eyes went from Sonic to Shadow to Sonic, the question that buzzed around in her mind was going to have to go unspoken.

"Sure, Amy, it was just awesome." Shadow brushed by her, this time he felt both of their eyes on him. He hated that feeling, that people were staring at you and you couldn't see them, well he hated it, unless that certain person happened to be Sonic. He stopped, knowing one of them was bound to ask him a question. He was willing to bet it was going to be Amy.

"Shadow, hey...where did Tails and Rouge go?" Shadow shrugged his shoulders at her, yep, he had been right.

"We split up. Tails thought he saw something and took off, then it was her idea we go our separate ways...said she had something to do." Sonic shook his head at Shadow, glad he was the one he stumbled across now though.

"Not the smartest idea, Shadow." Shadow turned and half smiled at Sonic after that comment, when he thought back on it, maybe it wasn't the most intelligent thing to do to let Rouge _and_ Tails go off by themselves. Amy rolled her eyes at him.

"Nah, they'll be fine..." Sonic fixed his glance on those dark red eyes, and shook his head. He had to admit, it wasn't like him to worry. Though, the fact that Tails had run off by himself was giving him an uneasy feeling. Why would he have just taken off like that? He shrugged the feeling off though.

"I hope so, after that little threat from Doctor Eggman..." Shadow looked at Amy as she spoke. Good job, Amy, just make him feel like a total idiot. That was the ticket.

"I'm sure Rouge is just wishing Knuckles was here." Sonic smirked, and Amy giggled and nodded her head. Shadow looked at her, memories of the blonde-haired girl entered his mind every time he saw her. She was_ so_ much like Maria, her laugh sounded almost identical. That stupid look she gave when she didn't know what she was talking about. Sonic nodded his head and ran his fingers over her quills, shoving them all forward, this of course made Amy mad, well, that fake, secretly loving it mad. "Sonic!"

"You think he is here?" Amy looked at Sonic like he was insane, how would Knuckles be here? They had been searching for him? Did Sonic not remember he had not come with them? He wasn't asking her the question though, it was directed at Shadow. Shadow obviously forgot too, because he shrugged his shoulders. Amy chimed in after a second.

"How could Knuckles be here, guys, he didn't come with us." Sonic shook his head, he gave Amy a half-hearted smile. She hated that smile, she hated that smile because it was all she was ever going to get. Heart-ache tugged at her once more, but again, she dismissed it temporarily.

"He may have gotten here another way." She gave him a confused look, what other way? Did he just hitchhike to the ARK or what? Sonic had to be going crazy. Shadow too, since he was agreeing with him, or either Shadow just felt really sorry for Sonic because he _was_ going crazy.

A scream jerked them out of the close to silence, Tails' scream. Sonic was taken aback, Amy had to suppress a scream of her own when she heard Tails. Sonic had no idea where it came from, it seemed to bounce off every wall over and over. "That can't be good..." Shadow jerked his head around a few times to lock on to the sound, but it was to no avail.

After several mind changes, Shadow finally turned his body a certain way and took off. Sonic grabbed Amy's hand and followed Shadow. "Good sense of direction." Amy sounded exasperated, they were back in the center room somehow. Eggman stood in the room though, along with another figure. Sonic scanned the room for Tails, he wasn't in there. After careful deliberation...it was Espio, unconscious, mind you, but Espio regardless!

Eggman pulled the ray gun up pointed at all three of them, that was just swell. He grinned evilly and looked them up and down. "Well, well, if it isn't Sonic and Shadow...and little miss Amy. Cowering behind people, as usual, I see." Amy snarled at him, but Sonic kept her back. Eggman seemed to cackle as he pulled the ray gun into firing position. He released the trigger, and the laser slammed into Sonic's chest. A contact that sent him sprawling across the room, leaving him disoriented on the other end of it.

"Oh my God! Sonic, are you alright?" Sonic sent a glare in Eggman's direction, after staggering back up. He looked at Amy and nodded his head, Shadow jerked his head back. Blood. Why would a laser...? He noted the protruding annoyance, which was what left a gash in Sonic's side. He gritted his teeth, trying to force the concern down his own throat.

"Sonic, are you okay!" Sonic deemed it slightly more serious when Shadow asked him, he still just nodded his head at him though. He was. Of course he was fine, the fact that the room was spinning meant absolutely _nothing_.

A high-heeled boot to Eggman's head proved useful as he stumbled across the room. Low and behold, this was the real Eggman. Rouge put her hands on her hips and stared at the doctor in annoyance, "You're really nerve racking, Doctor." Rouge kicked at Espio for a moment, Eggman smirked.

"Trust me, Rouge...he isn't going to get up..." He wasn't dead though, why wasn't he going to get up? Rouge sent him a glare.

"What'd you do?" Shadow inquired this before Rouge could. Eggman just grinned evilly at them both and refused to answer. Amy stood there, shivering helplessly behind no one but Shadow now.

'_When did you learn to multiply?' _Sonic tried hard to focus on one individual Eggman, but as he got close to doing this, ten more appeared. He finally let himself hit the ground, dizziness creeping up into his mind. Suddenly everything seemed like it was at the end of a long tunnel, including sound itself.

The last thing he heard at the end of the never ending tunnel was Shadow's voice saying something. He couldn't hear him clearly, as he blacked out, "Sonic please..." Shadow begged helplessly as he felt Sonic fall limp against the newly formed hold he had on him. He had not deemed Eggman important enough to keep him away from Sonic in his current state. Rouge was glaring at Eggman, and Amy was trying to, she just looked like she was about to cry, or throw up, one. Amy wanted desperately to go see if Sonic was okay, but her fear honestly had her paralyzed.

"Ironic...after all that, a simple blast from my laser cannon kills the wretched hedgehog." Shadow fought tears like he never had before, he stared at Sonic. The green-eyed hedgehog wasn't dead, but he wasn't in a certain living state either.

"He won't die!" Shadow viciously corrected Eggman, red eyes piercing right into him. Had looks been capable of killing, the doctor would have been dead twenty times over. Amy nodded her head, as the fear began to let up its hold on her a little bit, worry for Sonic taking its place.

That fox, Faye, skipped into the room. Rouge stared at it, blank, "What...is...?" Knuckles followed soon after it, stumbling slightly. "Knuckles!" Her voice sounded oddly happy. He glanced up at her, gasping for breath. A wormhole, this thing led him through a wormhole and here was Rouge. Where was he, the ARK? What the hell was going on here! He hadn't been paying attention, but as he saw Dr. Eggman, he began to put things into perspective.

"This is my little pet, do you like it, Knuckles?" Knuckles glared at him, he wondered if it was another robot. He just needed to know where the Master Emerald was, from the looks of things, it couldn't have been anywhere good. He looked around the room, Amy, Rouge, Shadow and ...Sonic!

"No, and you're going down, Eggman!" The doctor simply laughed at Knuckles' threat. Then looked at the little fox which seemed to just disappear after a moment of running past Eggman. Knuckles gawked for a moment. "...what?"

The familiar cackle rung in everyone's ears, "Oh...and by the way, Knuckle-head...the master emerald is still on Earth...you're just so **easy** to trick." Knuckles snarled and kicked the floor, which hurt really bad. On Earth? On the fucking planet he came from? It was probably hidden a stupid bush!

Amy ran over to Sonic and Shadow, Shadow flipped the blue hedgehog over to look at the damage the laser has done. His eyes widened, he sucked in at the sight, his breath shortening, nothing but a messy swamp of black and red. Burnt blood, torn almost directly through him. "Sonic! He has to be okay! He _has_ to be!" Amy shook her head and stared at Shadow, who was as frightened as her at the moment.

He lifted the limp hedgehog slightly, suppressing what few tears he had control over now, "...Sonic...don't die, Sonic...you can't! You don't have permission to! Because...I love you." He whispered it, those final three words of his sentence. Amy couldn't even hear the last words, Sonic did though. His body just seemed to get a chill, his breath quickening.

_Love! _That was it! It wasn't like at all! That was the word he had meant.

---

Wasn't that just sweet? I think the next chapter will be the last, I know, I know...oh darn. This has been fun though! I'm really starting to think this is hot. Hehe! Yayyy...hey, I'm trying here! (I didn't put anyone down! -looks shamefully away from reviewer-)


	7. A Picture of What the Ignorant Believe

_**Chapter 7**_

_**A Picture of What the Ignorant Believe**_

This might be the last chapter.(I lied) If it's not, the next one will be(I lied again). Yeah...well, please review. PLEASE? No I'm not BEGGING you or anything. Okay, I'm begging! Please review! n-n; C'mon...

Mm...guess I'm not begging anymore! Not a lot, but better than I thought, and not a single flame...yet(I hate jinxing things)! Thanks for all the super awesome reviews, you people ROCK! Good news everybody! This isn't going to be the last chapter, I figure I need to do a finale chapter after this one, and maybe a resolution after that one! So...be happy?

Disclaimer: I still don't own Sonic or any of them, Sonic Team owns Sonic and all of them. So shut up and go away. Please? (If I owned it, this would probably be an R rated television show! _JUST_ kidding!)

---

Sonic twitched after a moment, making himself come to, "What'd you say?" His voice was shaken as he slowly forced himself to a sitting position Shadow blinked, so this woke him up? He didn't feel like he could get those words out again. Why did he even say that in the first place! Shadow gave an awkward face and just shrugged.

Sonic had to flinch at the burning sensation of pain that seemed to slam into him like a brick wall. The black hedgehog just stared blankly into those green eyes, he was happy they were opened indeed, but his words got caught in a jumble in his throat. Amy looked at the two of them, Amy had heard Shadow mutter something, but was unable to make it out. Two red eyes shot desperately to the ground as he fought with himself to get the words out again, he didn't figure they were coming. "...later." His whisper almost didn't reach Sonic, though luckily for him, Sonic had been paying attention. He knew what Shadow had said before that though, and smiled.

Eggman raised an eyebrow at Sonic, who was now up and giving him a cocky smirk. He wasn't persuaded. "Oh, so you aren't dead...no matter, that gives me the opportunity to make your death all the more painful." Shadow let out a deep snarl and pushed himself back on to his feet. Amy grabbed Sonic's shoulders, begging him to stay down.

The smaller hedgehog stared at him softly, she shook her head desperately, tears burning furiously at her eyes again, "I don't want you to get hurt...anymore." Her voice drifted slightly. She couldn't handle losing him in more than one way, it was bad enough he wasn't returning her love, it would be even worse if he were to die. He gawked at her, she expected him to not fight Eggman? Had she lost any remaining sanity that she had been clinging to?

He drew a quivering breath, and looked up to Shadow. The black hedgehog was looking down at him, still. He said nothing, he couldn't tell Sonic not to fight, but oh how he wanted to. "I..." Amy threw herself into the blue hedgehog's arms, he was still on the floor. His eyes widened briefly as he heard her deep sobs that seemed to be coming from the very bottom of her chest. The red-eyed hedgehog jerked his head back to the doctor, who was busy dealing with Rouge's smart-ass comments; because of this, a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. He loved watching the doctor struggle vainly to defend himself verbally in any situation, which eventually turned into countless gibberish words and some kind of language the doctor seemed to have invented personally.

Eggman made a jerky motion with his hand as if to stop the remarks. It didn't really work, but whatever, Eggman figured it looked dramatic. "I've had enough of you babbling idiots! If you think I brought you here simply to be outwitted by you again, you are mistaken. I'm sick of you, all of you, you're no better than these pitiful humans." Shadow let out a hiss at this comment, how dare the doctor compare him to _humans_, the wretches who had killed Maria.

"You're going to regret your words, doctor." Narrowed red eyes seem to go straight through to even the doctor's soul. Knuckles simply sneered at the egotistic maniac, whom which had outsmarted him_ again_.

Shadow's head jerked as he heard the panic-stricken voice of the green-eyed hedgehog, "Where is Tails?" This comment seemed to bring much joy to a slightly agitated doctor.

"Tails..." Eggman started as if he intended the story to last hours upon in, hours upon in Shadow did not care for enduring. His glance met two angry green eyes as he spoke again, "...is out of commission to say the least." Shadow was glad the story didn't last hours upon hours, though the sentence itself seemed to bug Sonic in more ways than one. Where _was_ Tails, and what exactly was this moron talking about?

A sharp growl escaped Sonic, who still had his arms around Amy, who had yet to stop crying, "That doesn't answer my question, Egg-head!" The anger intimidated the doctor to a slight degree but this was only countered with the fact that he enjoyed shaking up Sonic as he was. Though, the ending result on his face was a frown as the hero used the annoying nickname.

"You don't really need to know that, Sonic...and I think I'm the one who should be asking the questions, seeing you as _don't_ know where he is."

This quieted the hedgehog, but he still seemed angry enough. Sonic supposed the idiotic doctor wasn't bluffing as he had heard Tails scream. He dismissed his worried thoughts in favor of the desperate pain tugging at him. He glanced down at Amy slowly, he was burned and bleeding and she didn't mind clinging to him? He heard her crying still, she seemed to have calmed down a bit though. "Okay, Eggman! You're going to have explain things right now!" Eggman's head jerked to Knuckles angry face.

"In short...I intend to kill you all here...shortly after..." He gestured to the window, and those of them in the room, save Amy and Espio, jerked towards the window. It was the Eclipse Cannon, cliche, but very functional.

Shadow's eyes widened and he took a step back after a moment, "You're a pain in the ass!" He snarled viciously through gritted teeth and Sonic just looked and stared back at the doctor.

"But, you need the chaos emeralds..."

Eggman rudely interrupted Sonic, which infuriated the black hedgehog further, "Oh, but you see...with my genius mind, I have found a way to harbor the energy of the emeralds as long as they are in a designated range." For once, Knuckles thought the doctor did something slightly intelligible. This didn't surprise him, though, considering Shadow probably would have warped as far away from here as possible had he possessed the ability.

Shadow just gave him a hollow laugh, "This isn't going to work, you insolent-minded fool...you have no idea what you're doing." A smirk broke out across his face, no one in the room could tell if he was bluffing or not, having his eyes closed in irritation from his previous thoughts, he opened them after a few short seconds of his ego kicking in.

"What?" This gesture infuriated Eggman, it didn't matter if he was bluffing or not. He wasn't scared, which was precisely what Eggman wanted. The smirk remained on the black and red hedgehog's lips as the doctor searched him furiously for signs of a bluff.

'_If I can get to the power room, I can disable the cannon, and get the power back into my own emerald and leave the doctor here to rot on this pathetic excuse for a space colony.'_

"You heard your grandfather before..." Eggman seemed interested after this comment, "...that cannon was created for one purpose and one purpose alone, and that was to save the world and all of humanity." He cringed at the thought indeed, a mechanism created to save mankind. What right did he have to talk though? He had saved them as well, he took a stab in the dark and guessed they just had a "savable" air about them. "Do you expect the plan to destroy the Earth with it to work? If you do, you're underestimating me and doctor Gerald." Shadow felt every eye in the room on him.

An inhaling of breath caught his attention, it was Amy. Sonic pulled up and met Amy's contradictory eyes. She wanted him so badly to sit back down, she let him stand though. What right did she have to stop him? Tears still poured down her face, she stared blankly at Sonic's wound. How did he expect to do anything with something like that? "Shadow..." There was one person in the room that knew he wasn't bluffing at all. "Go do what you need to...I'll take care of this moron." He smirked and gestured to Eggman with a flick of his head.

Shadow eyed him wearily, "...Faker...you're hurt." Sonic smiled timorously and shook his head just slightly. Fury ignited within Eggman as he saw the smile return to his nemesis's face. He would have declined, had the look in Shadow's eyes not caught his attention.

"Don't worry about it...I'll be fine." Shadow seemed skeptical, and extremely worried. He suppressed a whimper in the back of his throat. He knew if Eggman stayed out of his business he could do it. But, his worry for Sonic was clouding his common sense.

"You..." He fought back tears, "...you better be." He smiled, the tears welling in his eyes obvious now. Sonic pulled back slightly, biting hard into his bottom lip, he didn't think he had ever actually seen Shadow cry. Of course, he had been crying shortly before he woke up a few moments ago, but...he hadn't seen the tears then. Just the tear stains, and slight pink of his eyes.

"Are you...don't." This time his voice was a whisper and Shadow shut his eyes and drew in a breath. How out of character of him to get all in an uproar about a simple worry. But, thoughts of Maria swirled throughout his memory, he didn't want that memory to be repeated on this same damned space colony! He wasn't going to lose another person he loved in the same fucking place! He tried his best to dismiss his thoughts and focus on the azure hedgehog's intentions, though. After a moment, he nodded his head to Sonic and turned to go. He stopped before he got too far though, he turned to look at Sonic again. The blue hedgehog's eyes had not left him.

Rouge stared at them both and smiled, Knuckles was rather confused though. What the hell was going on? _'Are they going to** kiss** or what!' _He looked to Rouge and caught her smile, _what _was she smiling at? He was so utterly confused. He saw her glance turn to him, as she raised an eyebrow at him, at how dense he was being. Knuckles shrugged his shoulders, what was the look for?

Amy stared softly at the two of them. Her heart was still racing from worry, confusion and a few random other things. She couldn't seem to pull herself together, nor off her knees. "Sonic..." Her voice was far too quiet for him to even come close to hearing. Her heart sank like a rock in her chest, then seemed to twist in an unnatural fashion.

"You be careful too..." Sonic urged, "...and...keep an eye out for Tails, I have a feeling were going to need to get out of here pretty fast." Shadow nodded his head slightly, then exhaled sharply for another minute.

Eggman felt slightly ...uh, sad that they were not including him in their little conversation. Or maybe he was just mad, yeah, that was probably it, mad that he was being utterly and completely _ignored. _He was going to clear his throat, but decided better of it, as when he did that, it usually ended in him gagging and gasping for air. "But..." The 'but' sounded familiar, to Sonic at least.

"Hm?" He turned to Shadow, cocking an eyebrow just slightly at him. He felt the familiar grasp on his arm, and a look of exercised affection in the dark hedgehog's eyes met his surprised one. Shadow found the surprise on Sonic's face to be severely adorable, and somehow addictive. He brought the stunned hedgehog close to him once again. "You told me I could do this," he whispered this as Sonic was close enough to be the only one to hear it.

Shadow did it again! Sonic would have to be more wary of that particular 'but' from now on. It was quick this time though, and Shadow didn't keep him there, close to him, for long. Their lips connected, but the embarrassment, the awkwardness, all the feelings Sonic thought would be there, weren't. But how were they not? Eggman, Knuckles, everyone saw. The only thing he felt was his heart doing that peculiar fluttering thing it had done before. Shadow smirked and grabbed Sonic's almost trembling hand, then nodded his head to an almost unnoticeable degree, released his mate's hand, and took off. Sonic was left in quite a volatile daze.

Eggman was rather confused, but, to say the least, unfazed. It was none of his business what Sonic's sexual preference was. Though, it did slightly perturb him to think, Sonic did not seem "gay" at all. In fact, he was very ...guy-ish. Mind you, he realized that word was not going to be in Webster's dictionary, but nonetheless. So, he just shrugged it off and thought of finishing Sonic off, it wasn't really going to matter much at all once both of them were dead. But, Shadow had already left, so he'd have to make quick work of the people in this room if he was to make sure the ultimate life form did not mess everything up, which he was so very capable of doing.

Amy felt faint as she watched, the pain rushed into her heart, like blood, something tangible, real. Not a feeling. But, she wasn't surprised or taken aback. After all, she had expected it since they had been in that room at her house for so long together. But it hurt. Really bad. "Sonic..." Sonic just looked at her and gave her a look, she wanted to ask him if it was different when he kissed Shadow. But, she didn't, she just...looked back at him, and forced a smile.

Rouge had to fight a grin that pulled viciously on the corners of her mouth as she watched Knuckles' jaw nearly hit the floor. She eyed him, he was a _picture _of what an ignorant guy would believe. "Guys can be so dense..." Knuckles stared at her, realizing this was directed toward him, his jaw not exactly lifting. When he had thought the side thought of them kissing beforehand, he had not meant seriously! No way did he actually think they were going to...well..._kiss._

"D-dense...? Sonic and Shadow...YOU KNEW?" He stared at her, how dare she not tell him this! This was an important bit of information. Who else had known? Had everyone known? _Why _was_ he always _left out of the _loop!_ "Amy, did you?" He stared around the room and his glance stumbled across Eggman. "You didn't know, did you?" A rather frantic tone ensued the question to the doctor, who was just perturbed by it. Amy simply shrugged her shoulders, unable to fake another smile.

The doctor sent him a look, "...uh...yes, Knuckles...I knew all about it." It wasn't like Robotnick to use sarcasm, but Knuckles was at least glad he didn't know. Then his glance slowly met Sonic's sympathetic one.

"Sonic...you and _Shadow_?" Knuckles was indeed repetitive, but as Rouge had not answered him, Sonic gave him an encouraging smile and nodded his head. Knuckles put his hand to his forehead, and honestly, had to keep himself from fainting. It was an amusing scene, indeed. Shadow had successfully created chaos all around once again.

"Sorry, Knuckles..." Sonic couldn't help but smile, he liked it. It wasn't his fault, but he still declined at the thought of being gay, or the thought of giving it any titles. He just...liked, or loved, as he seemed to have recently discovered, Shadow, and he felt content to leave it at that. But, leaving it at that, did not mean dying right now. So, after the awkwardness of the scene wore off he gave Eggman a glare.

"Yeahh." Knuckles mumbled and then decided to let it slide for now, as the scene seemed twice as awkward as Eggman was just standing there stupidly.

"Too shaken up to fight, stupid, or can you manage?" Eggman glared at Sonic after his remark, the doctor snorted at this and then walked to one of the doors they had not gone through. A door opened and a new improved version(without the retarded slot machine) of his Egg...thing stepped out. After some amusing situations of him struggling to get in, he finally managed. Of course, they would have stopped him. But, as it was, Sonic and Knuckles wanted the challenge of it, and Rouge and Amy were too wrapped up in the two males to do much.

"Now...shall we begin?" Sonic just snickered and nodded his head, rather mockingly. Knuckles walked over to Sonic, still rather sour at him for keeping him in the dark about something so important. Sure, he didn't really seem like the love-life type person. But these things had to be put out in the open before they were revealed as Shadow revealed it.

"I'll be damned if that thing doesn't malfunction and blow us all sky high." It was really a side comment to Sonic, though Eggman heard it quite clearly and was incredibly annoyed with it. Though, his choice to completely ignore it and fire his weapon proved he had at least gained a little bit of common sense.

Sonic immediately jerked out of the way, and Knuckles just side stepped with seemingly no effort, concentrating heavily on bugging the doctor. Rouge found this very amusing, and incredibly cute. On note of her thoughts, her cheeks flushed. Amy gave her a look, but remained on the side of the room where no one was. Blood coated her red dress, so you couldn't really see it, except her arms now had a red tint to them. Her heart was pounding too hard, seeming to slam her into the ground with each beat. "...you can do it, guys!" She managed an encouraging sentiment as she remained there, on her knees, almost pathetically so.

Many weapons seemed to push forward out of Eggman's little mechanism, Sonic found this rather disturbing, "Good fucking God..." A look of annoyance from all the machinery twisted across his face, "say cheese." Knuckles sniggered slightly at this.

Rouge sighed, now worry seeming to get the best of her. Blade and guns mixed in together on one weapon? How was the doctor running a machine with so many gadgets? "Be careful, you two." They both seemingly ignored her, but Knuckles did hear it and took it to heart. He, himself, had mentioned when this all started he needed to listen to Rouge more.

---

Shadow tried to force the smug look he had plastered across his face away, but it wasn't working. Even he had a slightly 'giddy', for lack of better word, feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was assured he had caused more havoc than he ever could have imagined. "Shadowwwww!" He tensed up, gritting his teeth at the sound. The voice cut like a knife into his thoughts.

Charmy buzzed down the hallway, quickly and wrapped Shadow in a freakishly intimate hug. After struggling viciously for a moment, he shoved the little ingrate off of him, annoyed, his right eye twitching again. "Charmy!" He hissed furiously, "What the hell do you want?" The anger in his voice finally had an impact on the overly cheerful bee, as he pulled back slightly.

"Shadow, what's the matter?" He nearly sang the words, Shadow wanted to scream 'nothing until you showed up.' But, he kept his mouth shut and whirled. He needed to hurry if he didn't want Sonic getting hurt anymore than he already was. He started down the hall, but Charmy quickly followed. Where was...?

"Charmy? Where are youuu?" Why had he even thought that? What kind of idiotic thought was _that_? Who CARED where Vector was? Well, Shadow did now, because he was back and was about to unnerve him to the third degree.

"Vector! I found Shadow!" Oh yay, that thought just made Shadow so happy. How wonderful it was that he had run into Charmy and Vector not two minutes after departing from everyone else. Suddenly, the thought that he could run and completely blow these goof-balls away occurred to him. Before he did, he did manage to get a word of an actually civil tone in.

"Yes, you did. But, Charmy...listen...Sonic and a few others are in the center room fighting Eggman, and I'm sure he's got some ridiculously obnoxious gadget, would you two mind helping them?" Charmy seemed happy to help, that was one good thing about him, he was always ready to lend a hand. Well, Shadow guessed that was good. Cream was always ready to lend a helping hand too, but...yeah.

"No problem, Shadow! We will totally take care of it!" He whirled and passed Vector before he even caught up to them, going the opposite direction, "C'mon, Vector! Time to go kick some Eggman ass!" Vector gave Shadow a look, Shadow returned a cocky, rather skeptical look, that encouraged him to follow Charmy. He whirled finally and took off though, leaving Vector no choice, as Shadow was far too fast to catch.

"Uh, Charmy, hold up, there, buddy!"

---

Sonic let out a gasp, as a spray of bullets, apparently that of a former machine gun, pierced into his leg. Was this just his unlucky day or what? Pain ignited like a match through his veins, as he struggled and failed to stay on his feet. Amy covered her mouth in an attempt not to cry out, still on the floor. Though, Sonic had Knuckles to come to his defense. "Hey, Eggman...it looks like you're going to have to focus on me now..." Eggman screamed in an outraged fashion as Knuckles' fist, strong enough to put a severe dent in the metal and give Eggman a headache, slammed into the machine he was controlling..

"How dare you..." Knuckles simply smirked and interrupted him with another blow, this time a kick, though that just hurt him incredibly, and did manage to shake the vehicle enough to shut the doctor up.

"Smooth, Knuckle-head."

"Hey, Sonic! I'm saving you here...you have no room to give me hell." He looked behind him, quite surprised to find that Sonic had actually moved. He whirled his head again to see Sonic on the other side of the machine, in a rather limp position.

Charmy and Vector chose that moment to bust through one of the many doors, Sonic and Knuckles gave them confused stares. "We're here, guys!" Rouge realized who it was and forced a smile, wondering how they figured out where everyone was. It couldn't have possibly been Shadow, considering his hostility toward them earlier.

"Um...yay?" Sonic just seemed struck with a dazed expression as he eyed Charmy. Where they supposed to be happy that they "were here". He supposed he was being slightly conceited and should have been glad to have some help. But, he really didn't care. He felt like being conceited.

"Oh, like you guys don't need any help." Vector smirked and threw his fist up into the air. Knuckles seemed slightly annoyed at their new presence in the room. Eggman just seemed exasperated, obviously they had not been much of a threat to him in his past ventures on the ARK.

"Not from you..." Sonic muttered, but got a nudge from Knuckles. Charmy just shot him a glance, then noticed the unconscious Espio.

"Espio! We found you!" Amy stared at Charmy like a teacher would stare at a retarded student who busted into the class room and stated something like 'It is I, the Phantom of the Opera' in a valiant tone. Charmy seemed to think Espio could hear him though he was quite obviously unconscious. Amy simply shook her head, managing to overcome her desperate heartache for a moment.

"Charmy, Espio is unconscious." She said this rather dully, he looked at her in befuddlement. As if he didn't understand this comment. She wanted to reach over and slap the little bee right across the face, but she just sat there and gave him a spirit-lifting nod. He took a deep breath and then turned back to Eggman, seeming to accept the fact.

---

Finally, he opened the door to the control room. His stomach churned with unsatisfactory thoughts of Sonic's injury playing through his mind. He walked to the stand which held the chaos emeralds, or some of them and holographic images of the rest of them. He stared blankly at them, "And those are supposed to contain the power the real ones do? That's such a rip off." He stated this bluntly, then realized he sounded a bit like a child unimpressed with a new toy.

After putting in the incredibly simple password of "Maria", he stared, rather dumbfounded at the several images that flashed through the control panel, "How the hell am I...?" His head jerked up at the tube in the center of the room. Tails? How in God's name had Eggman gotten him into that tube tied so tightly, so fast? It didn't seem...possible. His eyes darted around the room. To meet a new version, possibly a hologram, of the vixen Knuckles had been chasing. It was glaring at him, a smug look across it's face. After some careful deductions and observation, the black hedgehog realized that a simple pulled switch would drop the fox into the abyss of space.

The vixen was about to pull that very switch, "Wait...hold it!" Shadow called out desperately across the room. He honestly didn't care much, but Sonic would never let him live it down if he let Tails die. The look on it's face was clear, oh, please, did it honestly expect him to take it on in combat?

After getting his ass kicked for a moment, he realized it did and that he had done some serious underestimating. Not only was the evil looking formerly-possible-hologram real, it was a bitch! Dizziness clouded his vision as he stared blankly in front of him at the female fox. He snarled and forced a kick into her body, slamming her back against a wall. The little annoyance had yet to finish yet though, she jerked back up and sent him stumbling across the room. Before he struck him again, Shadow grasped her hand in irritation. "I really don't have time for you." He felt her kick connect with his rib cage. Typical.

"Do you honestly think you can defeat me as easily as your thinking? I'm far more than meets the eye." Shadow gave her a scolding glare as if she were some type of a child. A psychotic child, bent on helping out an overly obese doctor.

"What's your _problem?_" He hissed through gritted teeth and she just stared at him. "I don't even know you!" In all reality, Shadow was sure something was wrong with her, as if she had been brainwashed, had a horrific past, or something of the sort. Had he been slightly more compassionate, he would have wasted valuable time trying to help this female he knew nothing about. But, he wasn't, and currently, he was thankful for that.

"My name is Faye." He raised an eyebrow at her. She figured he didn't care much for her story or anything else. The frightening realization that nothing she could do would make her stronger than this hedgehog hit her like a punch in the stomach.

Shadow rolled his eyes, the fake pleasantry in his voice was quite intimidating, "Hi, I'm Shadow. Would you like to go to dinner sometime?" She winced at his taunting tone. "I don't care who you are. But, I really don't have the time nor the patience to deal with you. Thus, this conversation is officially pointless." The red-eyed hedgehog pulled her hard into a door, well, most wouldn't have realized it was a door. But, himself having been a resident of the ARK formerly, knew it was. Pain shot through the vixen like a thousand knives, and she remained there.

He stormed back over to the control panel. "I have somewhere to be, and something to do...I have no intention of dealing with you any further." He glared furiously at the panel, then after a few taps, and a smirk that meant he remembered a few things, a latch opened behind the vixen. A paralyzing pull of space itself remained even after it pulled her out. He slammed it shut with another simple touch of the screen.

Needless to say, she wasn't going to be much of a problem from here on out. "Anti-climactic, yes...but I honestly don't have the time." (Nor do I want to waste anymore valuable writing space on her in this chapter.)

Unfortunately, the door was as far as his memory led him, leaving him to desperately sort through lights and flashing buttons to get Tails down and shut off the power. Light blue eyes stared at Shadow with a hopeful aura about them. "That...can't...be...normal." Shadow glared scornfully at the screen, which revealed a dancing Eggman. Finally, after a few more strange images, he saw it, desperately he stared at the way to disable the power. He'd have to hope the glass surrounding Tails was breakable, because he wasn't going to pass over it. He had no idea how he had even gotten to it, the Ultimate Life Form had been playing with buttons!

He glared and viciously pressed the deactivate button. Lights dimmed around him and he felt the emerald around his neck get its due power back. "Thank God." He smirked when he imagined the look on the doctor's face when the power went out like it did. Awkward, you could find one simple main control and shut the entire colony down. He had to admit, a mistake on Gerald's part.

Tails gave him an encouraging nod, as he walked over and examined the little tube from several different angles. As if! Like he was going to do anything scientific in the least, Shadow jerked up into the air, the energy of his shoes kicking in at the last moment to send a shattering forced down the glass. After a few cracks, it literally shattered, sending Tails sprawling to the floor, with a few additional gashes. "There we go!" Tails mumbled something at Shadow, as he untied him.

"Shadow!" He sounded rather frantic, "Where's Sonic?" Shadow gave him an annoyed stare, and Tails smiled in realization.

"Oh, thanks for saving me! I'd give you a hug, but you'd probably run away screaming." Shadow nodded his head reassuring this would happen if the fox hugged him. Tails just grinned slightly.

"Sorry, but...where are they?" Shadow yanked his arm, tugging him along. He supposed that's where they were going. Truth be known, Shadow would have been more annoyed with the fact he got 'where's Sonic?' before 'thanks!' If his mind hadn't been swirling with thoughts of the blue hedgehog as well.

"They're messing around with Eggman...but, I'm sure you already knew that." He glanced back at the fox he was still tugging, then Tails felt him pick up the pace. The young, light-colored animal felt like his arm was going to be ripped from its socket.

"Well, yeah..." Shadow had no idea how hard it was on Tails' arm. It was a difficult concept to grasp that not _everyone _ran faster than sound itself, fancy that. How odd.

---

Charmy sighed, exasperated as Eggman screamed furiously about the power. Sonic just had a smug look, though he was back on the floor from the new wound in his leg. "Idiot...what kind of a moron doesn't have a back up power source?" Charmy's comment had some sense in it, it proved that Eggman had not improved in the common sense category all that much, after all.

"Really, Robotnick...what were you thinking about?" He glared in Sonic's direction, he thought it was Sonic anyway. The only light they had in the room were the many stars that shown through the clear floor.

Rouge murmured and complained a bit, "I can't see a damn thing...did Shadow do this?" That thought occurred to Eggman. He had done it, that damn hedgehog had messed everything up...again. How fucking typical. Shadow and Sonic were never going to let him get away with a single plan, no matter how evil it was.

"Every single one of my plans...they_ never_ work." Knuckles snickered slightly and stared at the doctor. Eggman knew it was coming.

"Only because they suck." Eggman just gave one of his customary 'hmphs'.

"No, Rouge...it's normal for the entire ARK to just randomly lose power, Shadow had nothing to do with this." Sonic's voice held much sarcasm, which was usual for him. Rouge just pouted and didn't look at him, of course, even if she had wanted to, she wouldn't have been able to find him due to the blackness of the room.

"How are we not spiraling down through space if all the power has been shut off?" Amy's confused voice initiated a response from the doctor himself. Amy didn't really care to hear his voice, but she supposed it was the only answer she was going to get.

"Apparently, just the inner power has been disabled...which means..." The doctor seemed to remember something, and may have gone and proved to them how to get off the space colony by blurting it out, had Vector not interrupted.

But the gator_ did _interrupt! "I guess Shadow did it...he's faster than I thought." Knuckles and Sonic just sighed at Vector's comment, he was only the ultimate life form. Imagine that, him being _fast_? It was like some kind of a freaking revelation.

"No shit." Charmy complained at Sonic for cursing too much, which triggered more curse words to leave his mouth, this time in simple anger, not sarcasm.

---

**A/N:** Yay! See, that would be the gayest ending in the history of_ EVER_! So, I'm not ending it...I don't guess. Hmm, but...as you can see. It's kind of winding down. I know, I sped through a lot of things, but romance/emotion is my specialty...not action. So, you're just going to have to deal with that. Well, thanks for the reviews again! That was so totally nice of you guys! Oh! And...uh, since I'm too lazy to look up names right now...the reviewer who told me I update fast, thanks, I try! But, if I let it go too long, I'll forget all together, I have a bad tendency to not finish stories. -sigh- I swear I'm going to get around to it! _Really!_ HeHe, and sorry, Zatcher, just hang loose, buddy. I dunno what about my writing style you like, but thanks! And I can't help the fangirl in me sometimes. ;-P


	8. Here's The Clincher

_**Chapter 8**_

_**Here's The Clincher**_

Hi, I'm back! I was trying to develop an ...outline for this chapter before I wrote it, but as usual, I failed utterly and decided to just wing it...AGAIN! It's gone okay so far, this chapter...is probably going to contain the last bit of action this story will have. Though it hasn't had much! And for that, I apologize!

Disclaimer: I still don't own the bloody Sonic characters! I'm never going to own them! Man, I swear!

'Kay, here goes!

* * *

Tails sighed resignedly as he stared at Shadow, who stopped. This sudden decrease in friction flung the poor fox forward, until Shadow's grip on his arm jerked him back to where he had been before. The black hedgehog didn't notice, but Tails almost screamed in pain. "_What_ am I doing?"

"Hurting me," Tails said sourly, but as usual, the black and red hedgehog completely ignored him. He looked at Tails as if he might apologize, but then he just glared at him. Tails wondered what Shadow could possibly be having a revelation about. His ears fell back, the thought of it being something bad flashing through his mind.

"I can use chaos control." Tails just let out a sigh of complete exasperation. Why had he even thought Shadow could be expressing any sort of feeling toward anything at all. _Other_ than the fact he knew he was being completely stupid. Well, at least he was admitting it was his own fault, and not somehow blaming it on Tails. "Why didn't you tell me, you're the one with mind bottling intelligence!" Nevermind that!

"You're the Ultimate Life Form, Shadow." He said in a monotonous tone, Shadow seemed to agree with this. He was still sulking though. Tails shook the hedgehog's arm slightly, "C'mon, Shadow...we need to go...so, if you're going to use chaos control, it would be a good idea!"

"Oh, so now you're yelling at me?" Shadow glared at Tails and Tails just gave him a look. They had been arguing over the fact, standing there, when running they probably could have already been there. The hum of a machine brought them both to their senses, jerking them out of their childish argument.

"Mecha!" Tails almost screamed as he saw the machine. He had been wondering where the metal version of Sonic had gotten off to. They hadn't seen him since they had gotten here. The metallic hedgehog made its way toward the two of them. Tails clung to Shadow like some sort of a little girl, earning him a strange glance from the red-eyed hedgehog.

"Identities confirmed...Shadow the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower." Tails gulped slowly, his grip on Shadow's arm nearly cutting off the hedgehog's circulation. He advanced forward for a moment and stopped.

"Tails...let go of me." Tails didn't comply with the request though, he actually just clung tighter. Shadow simply repeated himself, as if Tails hadn't understood, "Tails, detach yourself from me immediately." Mecha seemed to be studying the two of them, almost seeming amused at Shadow's annoyance. Tails' hand dug past Shadow's quills and into his skin, Shadow winced and glared at the frightened fox. He jerked his arm away viciously, taking his attention from Mecha, "That _hurts_!" He hissed.

"Primary target: Eggman, if you do not stand in my way...I will not disturb either of you." Shadow arched an eyebrow at him. This was new, it may have been because they weren't Sonic, but he didn't say his primary target was the blue hedgehog either. He had said Eggman was his target.

Tails stared blankly at him, "So, Eggman did lose control of you?" He spoke to Mecha, and the metal hedgehog didn't seem like he wanted to have a conversation with Tails nor Shadow. Though, he reluctantly, responded in a condescending, almost annoyed tone.

"Eggman never had control of me." Tails scratched his head, but figured arguing the point with their metal enemy was not the thing to do. He nodded his head timidly and stepped back. "Now, stand aside." Abruptly, and somewhat rudely, Mecha spoke again.

Shadow complied reluctantly, though it was unlike him to follow orders handed out in such a brutish manner. His eyes stayed on the metal hedgehog as he watched him leave, "That might just be something I can laugh at." Tails grabbed Shadow's arm again, Shadow was not liking the attention he was getting from the fox. Tails simply shook him again, urging him to use chaos control again.

"Stop touching me." Before Tails could respond though, the black hedgehog had fulfilled his request. Tails blinked again and realized they were standing in a black room. His eyes scanned the room, already being accustomed to the dark. His voice wanted to whisper, but he found no need to. The darkness just had that effect on him.

--

"Tails! Shadow!" Amy got out in the most excited tone she could muster in her current state. She was glad they were back, though part of her was wishing the dark hedgehog would simply drop dead.

"Shadow...you pain in the ass!" The doctor screamed in frustration. Shadow sent him a smirk, the red of his eyes contrasting the blackness brilliantly. He gave him a nod of the head and then pondered whether to tell him he was about to get his ass seriously kicked by Mecha or not. He decided not to. Shadow simply crossed his arms across his chest and shook his head sympathetically, well, it was more of a mock-sympathy than anything. This just infuriated the doctor as he thrashed about the room like a two-year-old.

"Doctor, really...sometimes I question your intelligence." Shadow scoffed and looked away from the tantrum-throwing doctor. He smirked in the direction of Knuckles, who seemed to want to ask him a few questions. That was to be expected, but he really didn't want the red echidna screaming in his face.

"Shadow, I–!" Shadow held up a hand, somehow Knuckles noticed it and stopped talking. Shadow's smirk widened as he heard the expected 'bang' on the door. Tails gave a small murmur and looked around the room. He desperately wished some lights would come on, not like he was afraid of the dark, but he still didn't like the fact of what could be _in_ the dark! Everyone but Tails and Shadow were slightly confused at who else could be on the ARK.

Before they had too much of a chance to ponder, the door slung forward with a destructive force. That same door happened to slam cruelly into the already injured blue hedgehog. Which was quickly ensued with a scream, and a grunt of annoyance from the aforementioned. Amy finally pulled herself from her knees, "Sonic! Are you okay?"

In all actuality, he may have been slightly injured, as his ribs felt like they had each individually been snapped into two separate pieces. Though, the prideful hero was simply embarrassed that a _door_ had hit him. Mecha stepped through the doorway, his red lit eyes proving to be quite menacing in the darkness of the room. Shadow gritted his teeth and gave a worried expression in the direction of Sonic. Upon getting over to the injured creature he lifted the severed door from his friend's aching body and Sonic pulled himself painstakingly out from the immediate range of the door. Shadow released it, causing an exploding sound to echo through the room. "Doctor Eggman _and_ Sonic..." Mecha seemed more humanoid than usual. No, 'identity confirmed' came before this.

"Hey!" Tails argued, "You said you were after _Eggman_." Shadow cursed himself mentally for not grasping that Mecha wouldn't tell them he was after Sonic. He may have been created by Eggman, but his practicality level was somehow far superior to that of the doctor's. Rouge gave the familiar enemy a dissatisfied stare, Knuckles just glowered furiously since he had been interrupted for the umpteenth time.

"I said I was after Eggman, and I am after Eggman. I just simply did not inform you pathetic meat bags that I was after Sonic as well." Tails fumed. Shadow clenched his fists angrily in complete fury over the _lying_ trash compactor. His red eyes lit with nothing but absolute rage as he watched the jerky movements of Mecha as he seemed to scan the room.

"Metal Sonic?" Eggman questioned savagely as he stared at the metal form of the poor hedgehog that had just been nailed with a door, "I thought I shut you down earlier?" He eyed his metal creation with a sort of annoyance.

"I will not be controlled by anyone...any longer." Tails placed a hand on his head after this. But, someone interrupted him before he could speak.

"You're right, Mecha! You won't be! Because I'm going to dismember you piece by piece right now!" Knuckles threateningly stared at Mecha, Mecha gave him nothing more than an idle glance. Knuckles dully stared back, his fury gradually evaporated into nothing more than an intense dislike for the idle nature he was being given as of late.

"I have no intention of eliminating anyone in this room other than Doctor Eggman and Sonic, but I will destroy anyone who attempts to stop me from doing this." Eggman stared blankly at Mecha for a minute, anger swelling inside his mind. This was _his _creation! How was it that he seemed to have lost control of it more times than he could count? If he survived this, he was just going to destroy Mecha, and not have to worry about it anymore! But, for the time being, he figured he could use the help of everyone else to get out of this.

"Now, if we just work together here...we can easi–!" A furious shout interrupted his what would have been long and drawn out speech. But, the bruised and slightly battered hedgehog was not in the mood for someone sounding like he had sounded for so many battles.

"Just shut _up_...as if we're going to help _you _out after all you're annoying attempts to utterly and completely kill us! You think we're just going to forget that and help you out...**_again_**?" Sonic drew a breath and just gritted his teeth together, it looked like the hedgehog was livid, when truth be known, he was just in a good deal of pain. "I'll defend myself and you defend yourself, it's no one's fault but your own that _your _creation wants nothing more than to tear both of us _limb from limb_!"

Eggman stared, dumbfounded, at Sonic's enraged outburst. Well, crap, now he had one choice and one choice alone.

Everyone stared blankly as Eggman fled like a two-year-old through the open space of the door the Mecha had blown open. Even Metal Sonic was slightly bemused by Eggman's pathetic attempt to escape him, but the metal hedgehog did not deem him worthy enough to chase after at the moment. He had no means of getting off the ARK, and Mecha was well aware of that fact. "Mecha..." Sonic desperately argued with the overzealous murdering machine.

"You cannot defend yourself, now, Sonic the Hedgehog. So, why not just sit back and accept your fate...?" Sonic scoffed at Mecha's words, and had no intention of 'accepting his fate'. But, a black arm in front of him, proved Shadow had no intention of allowing him to even attempt to defend himself. Metal Sonic gave a sadistic smirk to the black hedgehog.

"If you try and defend him, I will destroy you too...like before, Shadow the Hedgehog." Amy shrank slightly behind Sonic, clinging to him like a five-year-old, or for reference, as Tails was clinging to Shadow not too long ago.

"You got lucky before...you're still nothing but an overrated toaster." Mecha seemed to actually be slightly annoyed with this comment as he got in the customary ready stance for a battle, he intended to win with much ease, obviously. Shadow silently got himself all worked up over the fact that he had basically gotten brutally mauled last time the two battled. Then a thought struck him, "Wait...Mecha, why in the hell did you gather the emeralds for Eggman?" Mecha simply glared at him.

"So he would get Sonic and himself and once place, which would make it far easier on me."

"In other words you were being lazy." Even Mecha had some of the doctor's intelligence flaws, he had given up the emeralds, meaning the emeralds he had absorbed were no longer contributing to his own power.

"Shut it." An irate tone came over Mecha's voice.

Sonic chuckled slightly, then looked at Shadow, "Shadow, I can handle this...seriously." His voice was soft for some reason, he couldn't figure out why. A burning sensation of pain ran rampantly through his ribs and leg. He didn't let any of the sudden pain show in his expression, but obviously Shadow had better eyes than most as he just looked at him, cocking his head back slightly so he stared at the blue hedgehog at something of an angle.

"Get over it and relax, Faker...I've got a score to settle with this metal freak, anyway." A smirk gradually fell across Shadow's lips as he watched Sonic's pitiful expression. A whirl back towards Eggman proved there was no further argument to make. The green-eyed hedgehog just backed off, or allowed Amy to pull him back.

Something in Mecha ignited, like someone flicked a switch. A switch from calm to angry, he furiously jerked forward toward Shadow, who jerked out of the way. Seeming to have lost all interest in Sonic for the time being, he whirled ferociously back around to face the darker hedgehog. "You have gotten in my way for the final time."

"Wow...how scary are you?" Shadow's tone was so mocking it fueled Mecha's anger to unimaginable degrees. He flew at him again, seemingly, less...coordinated and...powerful than before. Shadow dodged and delivered a roundhouse kick to the robot's face. "So, you must have been using the emeralds for power? How sad." A noise, probably meant to be a growl, escaped Mecha as he landed a punch to the side of Shadow's head. Only to be annoyed by the fact that Knuckles grabbed him roughly and flung him backwards.

Knuckles grinned, "Two on one? Do you really think you have a chance?" Rouge smiled slightly and shook her head. She simply sat down and watched the three fight out their little skirmish.

Their skirmish consisted of quite a complex number of movements, something Rouge the Bat could not even keep up with. Mainly a mixture of Knuckles getting forced back into a wall, denting Mecha's face in horrifically, Shadow coming out of random locations and knocking Mecha across the room, and the occasional mock Shadow and Knuckles would give the metal hedgehog. The point was, Shadow and Knuckles were technically winning. Therefore, her attention was elsewhere. A familiar cry forced her attention back to the fight though. A gash, cruelly placed along Knuckles' torso, was the cause.

A mix of fury and anger seemed evident in the dented and sparking creation. Quite a pitiful sight, indeed, though one that was no where near finished. Shadow finally came to his senses and used a chaos spear to get Mecha away from beating poor Knuckles' into a pulp. Metal Sonic turned angrily around to face the black hedgehog. "You are becoming increasingly annoying." This just put a smug look on Shadow's face.

A dazed Knuckles stated something strange and jumbled shortly before he passed out. Mecha didn't seem to care much for finishing him off, as Shadow had his anger reaching to new and unforeseen levels. "Glad to hear it." Mecha was quite a sight, a malfunction within his systems, probably from a punch delivered by the now unconscious echidna, was forcing a twitch every so often, which was amusing Shadow.

Rouge walked over to Knuckles after a second, kneeling down carefully, making sure he was all right. He was, but he didn't look like he was going to be jumping back up and taking on Mecha again any time soon. She didn't leave his side though, suppressing serious worry for the stubborn echidna. "Shadow, it looks like you're gonna have to finish him off." This didn't seem to surprise Shadow in the least.

"Good." He didn't seem any too excited about it though. The fact that Mecha seemed to be getting increasingly powerful with every level of rage he reached. Mecha glowered cruelly, or, you would think he was glowering, you really couldn't tell since his eyes didn't give away much, other than was he functioning or not.

Both of the hedgehog's, one flesh and blood the other metallic jerked towards each other. For everyone in the room, except Knuckles and Espio, the battle seemed to take hours. They literally thought they were going to be staring at the two stubborn creations fighting each other endlessly. Charmy and Vector even seemed to be getting bored, though formerly, they had been so very into the fighting, "Come on, Shadow...finish him off." Shadow sent a glare towards the previously silent bee.

"Shut up...I'm doing my best." This slight distraction was enough to get Shadow a severe blow to the head. Severe enough to leave him in something of a daze, this jerking the blue hedgehog to his feet. Charmy was going to apologize, but decided better of it, as he would probably just get cussed out by one of the two real hedgehogs in the room.

Amy released Sonic after a moment of trying to keep him where he was, there was really no point in it at all. She watched him, frightened for his own safety, she couldn't bring herself to say anything though. It wasn't her place to argue the point with him. Obviously, he cared for Shadow a lot more than he cared for her. The thought brought back that familiar blow to her heart, as she fought back tears again.

Sonic jerked in front of his incredibly dazed mate, clenching his fists intensely, closing him hard enough to cause blood to slip down his palms. Mecha seemed surprised for a moment, then pleased as he saw the blood still seeping down Sonic's leg from the bullet wounds. "You said you wanted to kill me, you idiotic faker...so...why don't you see if you can?" Truthfully, he was bluffing like he had never bluffed before. He couldn't fight Mecha, no matter if he _did_ have the hilarious twitch, with most likely a few broken ribs, a leg consisting primarily of bullet wholes, a burn mark from a laser in his chest, and random obscured bruises and gashes all over him. Honestly, he didn't see how Mecha wasn't going to see through the bluff as a two-year-old could have.

"You are a fool for even interfering...you cannot even fight in your current condition." Sonic's eyes twitched. He knew this, but his pride would not allow him to admit it. He could fight perfectly fine, the fact that his vision kept blurring then coming back to normal and the severe pains that would randomly hit him like a hammer meant nothing. He could fight, and beat Metal Sonic. Yeah, and Amy was the queen of England.

"But, fine...if that is the way you want to play it, then be a fool." Thrusting himself forward, the metallic hedgehog jerked Sonic backwards. A deep wish that the wall had not been so close to his back overwhelmed the green-eyed hedgehog as he slammed into it, feeling as if every bone in his body snapped on impact.

Meanwhile, Shadow was staring at a mixture of colorful stars and what was actually going on. He forced himself to blink a few times, and gradually the stars started to disappear, replaced with a few blotches in his vision. "Ow..." He mumbled and weakly sat up, noticing Mecha knocking Sonic around like a rag doll, "...hn, deja vu." He weakly stood up, his legs shaking as he proceeded to do so.

Amy's alarmed scream brought him fully back to reality, **no**, he had not unfortunately gotten amnesia all over again. That would be completely idiotic, why would anyone even _think_ of that? It's completely _mental_. Shadow forced himself to realize what was going on, sucking in a breath as he saw Mecha bring down a...claw-like...thing across Sonic's torso, then head. The hedgehog seemed to have taken a few more injuries than he was limited to, because he completely passed out. "Good timing, Faker." Shadow jerked to his feet, wishing he could randomly find a rock to fling at Mecha, as he felt as if he was moving in slow motion. Though, he wasn't, and did manage to nail Mecha before he did anything else. "Man, Sonic...you really gotta shake this stream of bad luck you have going. ...for both our sakes." He said the last part lowly.

One of Mecha's rims of red, or the red area of his eye, flickered out after a second. He seemed idly fed up with the group of them, suddenly Shadow got extremely annoyed as he glared at Vector, "Why aren't you helping? You are _HUGE!_ The least you could do would be to help us out to a slight degree, sit on him...do..._something_!" Shadow gave him a frenzied look. Vector gave a smile of guilt.

Mecha's twitch continued, finally getting to him. The other eye, in turn, flickered out. Shadow sighed and walked over to him, flicking the metallic forehead and the machine simply fell over. "We are SO leaving."

"What about us?" The conscious members of Team Chaotix felt slightly saddened by the fact that Shadow probably wasn't including them in the "we" he mentioned. They were proven correct as he gave a harsh glare in their direction.

"You can stay and _rot_!" Charmy lowered his head shamefully as he stared at the black hedgehog. Who didn't even deem him worthy enough to keep staring at, or actually, it was probably because he was too worried about Sonic to let any more mean comments go in his direction. He watched as the black and red hedgehog knelt down over the injured one.

Tails ran over to him, followed by Amy, Rouge was contented to stay over by Knuckles, figuring if the three of them couldn't morally support Sonic enough, he needed some kind of an institution. "Is he gonna be okay?" Shadow raised an eyebrow at the curious fox, a smirk lighting his face as he looked back down.

"He's Sonic, he'll be fine." Tails relaxed.

"What about Espio?" Shadow rolled his eyes in Vector's direction. He didn't think the gator deserved an answer, but Tails thought otherwise.

"Don't worry, guys...he just used some sleeping gas on him...he just likes to blow things completely out of proportion, he should be up in a few hours." Vector and Charmy seemed pleased to hear this explanation. Though, Espio would probably prefer unconsciousness.

---

Amy glared furiously at Shadow, who simply leaned against one of her walls, shutting his eyes. "I don't see why we couldn't just take him to the hospital! They could take good care of him there." The black hedgehog got up and walked across the hardwood floor of her house. He rested his shoulder against the window seal, letting her finish whatever it was she was babbling at him about.

"There's no point...he's almost well now...you can put bandages on just as well as any nurse." Shadow's smirk turned to a sour look as he realized she took this as a really sweet compliment. "...Amy, I didn't even mean it like that." He despised how she always took his insults and turned them into great things. It drove him completely insane. They would have continued arguing, had a familiar blue hedgehog not shut them up.

"Hey..." He mumbled, still slightly tired as he had just woken up. Shadow turned to him after another moment of glaring furiously at Amy, he smiled when he saw Sonic though. Though, the determined blue hedgehog looked slightly exhausted still though. "Were you guys fighting again?" Amy shook her head reassuringly, trying to get him to go back to bed. But, he obviously didn't want to. "Yes you were." He seemed to wake up a little more, "Where are Knuckles and Rouge?"

"Probably out on a date or something, maybe he professed his undying love for her, but who knows?" Sonic had to turn completely around to find that the voice was from Tails. He was sitting on Amy's couch, smiling at Sonic as he met his gaze. "So are you feeling any better now, Sonic?" Sonic nodded his head, though, no one knew why Tails asked this question. What was Sonic going to do? Scream no, run back in the room and hide under the covers? "Good!" Tails seemed okay with the response though, as Sonic did look considerably better as well, save a few bandages around his torso and arms.

"Knuckles professing undying love, I'm not thinking so." Sonic cocked his head to the side, Shadow watched Sonic's movements intently. He blinked his eyes, his mind not wanting to focus on anything but the injured blue hedgehog. His mind wandered, but he redirected his gaze past him, not wanting to get caught staring dead at him. True, he had said he loved him, but he still had that childish nature of not wanting to get caught in the act of staring, not like anybody wanted to get caught doing that, though.

His thoughts didn't do as his glance though, remaining on Sonic even after his gaze left him, _'He's...so cute.' _Admittedly, in his mind, he even sounded confused at why he thought this. It was a confusing concept to grasp.

"Well...I said I wasn't sure." Tails started, he sounded like he was going to finish, but the pink hedgehog interrupted him. Guys never got the point across when they were trying to talk about what had happened. She had come to realize that all of them tended to mumble and mix things up, it was like they lacked the capability to tell at story.

"They went back to angel island, I hope they get together! How sweet would that be?" Sonic just stared at her dully, he didn't mean to seem so uninterested, but he really couldn't care less. He tried not to show this in his expression, obviously it worked too, or either she wasn't paying much attention because she kept right on going with the story. Shadow eventually looked over to her, wondering when she intended to shut up. "Well...she did hug him when he woke up, then they both left separately, but I'm not sure if they're together now or not."

"If they are, I'm sure they're arguing." Amy scowled at Shadow. Why did he always have to ruin everything? And by everything, at this moment, she meant _everything_. He sent her a smirk and then shifted his glance back out the window.

Amy put her hands on her hips and gave the black and red hedgehog a menacing stare, when after two minutes this still had no effect, she resorted to shouting, "Shadow! You jerk! I bet they aren't!" His red eyes left the window long enough to meet hers for only a moment. He was quite amused with the annoyed expression though.

He turned completely this time, then rolled his eyes at her. This action seemed to drive Amy crazy as she stared at him and waited for him to respond with some smart-ass remark. He could really get to you if he tried, she would know, "That's all that echidna ever does is argue, why wouldn't they be arguing now? You never know what happened...they could hate each other now."

Before Amy could shout again, as his head was beginning to hurt, Sonic spoke up, "Well, Shadow, don't be optimistic or anything." He grinned and Shadow shrugged his shoulders. He had no real reason to be optimistic in the least. Sonic stared at Shadow now, the black hedgehog became intensely interested in the floor and didn't look up at him. For some reason, a nervous feeling had crept over him.

"No problem." He smirked, feeling the green eyes remain on him. He wanted to look up, but he was severely flustered for a reason not understandable to him. Tails bounded up and down on the couch, though, before Sonic could say anything in return.

"So, I guess we saved the world again!" Tails seemed seriously pleased with this fact, the three others in the room simply looked at him in bemusement.

"Not really...I just warped Eggman and Mecha to some remote location on an island to work out their differences," He said this mock pleasantly, sarcasm present in the tone, "and we got off the ARK...not really a big deal." Tails twitched as he hated the fact that Shadow had completely and totally crushed his enthusiasm. His eyes stumbled across the pink hedgehog, who seemed like something was upsetting her. He wondered what the matter was, it was unlike Amy to be depressed. He hated the fact that she seemed to be, he liked her abnormally cheery behavior. He was one of a few that did. Or he might have been _the _only one that did.

"But, Sonic..." Amy's voice seemed somewhat pleading as she addressed the blue hedgehog, he looked at her. His glance shifted back over to Shadow after a moment though, his heart sped up, as he felt it pound drastically against his rib cage. All three of them desperately wanted Tails to leave. Tails was being slightly oblivious now though, so finally Shadow had to speak up for himself.

"Hey, Tails...get out." Amy winced at the harshness in Shadow's tone. Sonic blinked, shocked that the hedgehog had been so forward with Tails. Then he wondered why it seemed so strange to him that he had been, as Shadow was always rather blunt. Tails seemed slightly surprised that Shadow had just up and said this, he blinked and then slowly stood up. He stared at Shadow as if he had two heads. Amy smiled and sympathetically urged him out with a motion of her hands. He lowered his ears slightly and headed for the door of her house.

Amy's ears fell backwards upon the sad looking fox, "We just need to talk to Sonic, we'll come get you in a minute!" Her voice changed back to it's usual upbeat cheeriness as she spoke. Tails smiled and nodded his head, having a little less sulk about him as he left.

Shadow sent Sonic a quick glance, a weak smile crossing his lips. Sonic returned it after a second, his thoughts racing faster than he could run. _'I do love him...but what am I going to say to her?'_

* * *

Yay! I'm finished! That didn't take too long! I wasn't really pleased with how this came out, but I tried reconfiguring it like ten times and this was the best result I had. So yeah, hope it wasn't too horrendous. The next chapter should be a lot better. As I've been planning it the whole time I wrote this one. Yay? Please review! 


	9. My Kryptonite

_**Chapter 9**_

_**My Kryptonite **_

Disclaimer: Deep breaths...deep breaths. If you haven't figured out now that I don't own the Sonic games or anything having to do with the Sonic games, you are an idiot and probably need help.

Yay last chapter! Well, not 'Yay'. But you get it...this is the last chapter! I have gone over this in my head over and over...and...well, you'll just have to see...here's the ending! Enjoy!

* * *

Amy closed the door gently behind Tails and looked back at the two male hedgehogs. Her heart felt twisted and torn into over six thousand pieces. She fought the tears brimming at her eyes, she thought maybe if she looked him in the eyes, looked into those emerald green eyes that so brilliantly matched her own, that maybe she could somehow convince him there was no way he really liked Shadow more. He couldn't! She took a deep and shaking breath as she turned to face them completely, her legs felt shaky, as if they weren't going to support her weight much longer. She prayed the weakness wasn't visible in her features, but it was, as Sonic so clearly announced. "...are you okay, Amy?" He had a strange tone of guilt in his voice and she heard it. He knew it was his fault that she felt like this.

The three of them seemed to sit there in a silence that pressed down on each of their lungs, suffocating them. None of them wanting to start the conversation, because no matter how it went, unless they decided to all three get married, and that would be just plain _weird_, someone's heart was going to get shattered into a million pieces. Amy knew it was most likely going to be her, but she couldn't help clinging to a feeble hope that it wasn't. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her words stayed glued to her tongue. Sonic's questioning voice seemed to linger in her mind, she recalled the guilt in it, like a memory from over thirty years ago. "Yeah, I think I might be getting sick." She mumbled awkwardly, staring at her feet. She felt his gaze leave her after she answered the question. Amy couldn't look up to see if Shadow and Sonic were looking at one another.

"Don't lie." Shadow finally spoke up. Amy had never noticed how severely Shadow's voice cut through silence. It was strict and somewhat harsh, she sucked in a breath after he spoke. She was lying but she didn't want to tell the reason for the tears teeming in her eyes. "You feel the same way I do, for the same reason." The same voice. She clenched her eyes shut tightly, it hadn't hurt so much when she thought it. Her eyes traveled up the blue hedgehog just far enough to see a clenched fist. She let out a shaking exhalation of breath. Her eyes eventually drifted completely up the reason of which Shadow spoke.

Sonic winced softly after the comment. Sometimes he hated the fact that Shadow was so damned blunt. Did he have to phrase it so that every single point sounded so gory to Amy? He gritted his teeth and looked at the two of them. They were both looking at him. Exactly what he was hoping they weren't doing. Finally, he started over toward Amy and released his clenched fists. Staring into those pretty green eyes, he took her hand after a second, her eyes widened as he moved. "Amy..." He spoke her name, and his words got caught in the back of his throat. He couldn't say anything else to her. He didn't want to reject the girl, he thought she was one of the prettiest things he had ever seen. Not to mention, she was a good friend when he had needed her, but truth be known, he had to stop this right now. "...Amy, I don't want to hurt you." She strained to hear his soft voice. He wouldn't look up at her though, she stared at his downward-cast eyes.

He felt her stare at him as she squeezed his hand a little tighter in her own. He had never felt so close to Amy before, but he didn't love her. He didn't, he didn't even like her as a girl, he liked her as a friend. That was all he could get out of his feelings. He would rather do anything than hurt her, anything, that was, except lie to himself. "I know you don't, Sonic." Her voice was quieter than his. He hadn't thought that was possible. He remembered the black hedgehog and felt those two red eyes staring him down. He could feel the sympathy even from across the room. "It's..." She couldn't get it out, he heard her choke softly on her words. Tears straining at her eyes, she allowed a few to slide down her soft cheeks.

"Amy, I don't..." Her hand on his mouth prohibited him from speaking any further. Before, she had thought she could handle hearing it. That she could handle losing him permanently. She couldn't though, she didn't want to know. She thought that maybe if she ran from the room, everything would change, Sonic would change his mind. He sighed softly as she didn't remove her hand, he grabbed it with his own free hand. "I don't love you." He heard a sob escape her. He bit into his lower lip; he didn't want to look into her eyes. But, he had to and he looked up, finally. She didn't let him take it any further than that.

"But...what about..." He just shook his head. Her heart felt like it was under about thirteen thousand cinder blocks. The blue hedgehog bit his lip again, he was rather unprepared for what was going to happen. He didn't know if she was going to slap him or burst into tears, or hell, the girl could have started laughing hysterically! She proved all but one of those theories wrong by choking out another sob. He stared into her eyes, tears shamefully obvious inside them. One of his feet escaped backwards as if the poor girl was going to lunge and attack him. "Sonic!" She shouted, his ears drew back in alarm as the sound reached them. "Why?" He couldn't very well answer her, so he just kept a blank stare on his face. "I love you, Sonic! I don't understand."

"Amy, please..." The green-eyed hedgehog turned away from him, shivering in depression. Sonic placed a hand on her shoulder, he felt her shudder as he touched her. "...don't." She pulled away angrily, then looked over to the slightly concerned black hedgehog, who had been paying closer attention that she thought. Sonic's knees felt weak, and his stomach filled with a nauseating sense of dread. He hadn't wanted to do this to her, but he had no choice in the matter.

"Don't?" She questioned, as she looked back at him, her voice was high, tears were streaming down her face as she shouted, her voice hoarse from crying. "Don't what, Sonic? Don't **_cry_**?" Sonic felt awful, he wanted to grab a rope and hang himself. He winced and shrugged his shoulders, he looked like a child taking a reprimanding from a parent.

"Amy, don't yell at him." Amy turned her furious glance towards Shadow. The two glared at each other in complete rage for a few moments. Amy may have very well attacked the black hedgehog, had Sonic not grasped her shoulders. She turned and stared into his eyes for what felt like ages. Tears kept falling down her face, Sonic felt like hell, but he knew he couldn't let her keep acting like this. It was getting outrageous.

"Sonic...I'm sorry." She finally resigned quietly, staring down at the hardwood floor. Sonic drew in a breath, he didn't feel relieved of what he had done, though she had relaxed slightly. Shadow put his hand to his forehead, he had really fallen in love with the wrong person, at the wrong time. Why did he have to interfere with Amy's love interest? Although, he had to say it was better than Rouge's. A look of dismay crossed his face as he imagined himself and Knuckles, he shuddered in quite a disgusted manner.

"So am I...but, Amy...I can't change this...I would if I could, but there's no way I can lie to myself and to you...it would be a total fake. It wouldn't work." She stared at him blankly, he hated that look. He looked away shamefully after a moment; quite honestly, he looked like a puppy that had been kicked too many times, his bruises and wounds added to this effect. Then he heard her take another deep breath and start to speak.

"I know...Sonic..." She let her voice leave, what else was there to say? That she loved him? That would just make the poor guy feel worse. She wrapped her arms around him, Shadow stared at the two of them. He swore Amy had Sonic in her arms for over an hour. He was absolutely sure they had fallen asleep or something. He wondered what Sonic was thinking, since the only thing he saw was Amy's tear-streaked face. Though, the girl had yet to cease the crying. "I really do love you, I always will." She finally said it, she disregarded any consequences it may have, he needed to know it. He just gently nodded his head as he pulled back from her.

"Believe me, I know that, Amy." The tenderness in his voice was enough to make her forget everything, at least for a moment. She could just lose herself in the sincerity of his voice. Sure, he was Sonic the hedgehog, who never got worried, never cried, never...showed any type of real emotion, but he could still always make her feel better. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to push thoughts of him from her mind.

Shadow's position became uncomfortable and he shifted, he knew he had no right to interfere in this little...'goodbye' they were having, but he wanted her to leave; he was ready to commit suicide from impatience. He needed to talk to Sonic too, had they forgotten that? He was sure Amy had, but he couldn't help feel a little jealous, even now when Sonic was plainly rejecting the poor girl, of her, he was treating her with a gentleness he had never shown Shadow before. He was afraid somehow the girl was going to win him back over in this agonizingly long moment, just staring into his green eyes like she was. "Well..." Her gaze fell upon Shadow, whose expression showed no emotion what so ever, "...I guess you two need to talk, huh?" She turned to exit the room. Sonic wanted to say something nice, just one more time, to lift her spirits, if only slightly, but there was nothing_ to _say. Sure, 'Amy, have a nice fucking day, even though I just ripped your Goddamned heart out.' He kept his mouth shut, angry, yet somehow satisfied with himself. "I'll talk to you later." They were in her house, they both realized this, so by later, she meant 'as soon as you're finished talking because I'm going to wait like a crazy person outside.'

The blue hedgehog nodded to her and she simply let the door click shut behind her, Sonic turned to face Shadow after that. "You okay?" Sonic nodded his head, a smile creeping across his face as he lifted his eyes to meet Shadow's. "Faker, I honestly didn't think you had it in you to do that to her."

Sonic gave him a stressed look, "Do what to her? I didn't want to, but I couldn't very well...lie to her." Shadow nodded his head, Sonic did have a point here. But, they were avoiding the point they _needed_ to address ASAP. The two of them directed their gazes to the floor, each wanting the other to speak first.

"Sonic..." Shadow seemed to stammer through his name though it came out perfectly, he sighed and tried to come up with any other words. But, nothing but the hedgehog's name was repeating in his mind. He had never been so speechless in his entire life. He tried hard to locate the right words within the depths of his mind, but it was as if they were playing a particularly annoying game of hide-n-seek.

"Back there, on the ARK...did you say?" Shadow gritted his teeth, he didn't want to blush, but he was beginning to think it was unavoidable. He bit into the inside of his cheek, he knew he needed to interrupt before Sonic saying it made him whimper with desire.

"Yes." It was all he managed to squeak out, this seemed to be enough to give him the upper hand though. He stared up at the blue hedgehog, who jerked his glance down again. He saw his cheeks turn a bright shade of crimson and a grin came to pass over Shadow's lips as he saw the blush. Obviously, it meant something to Sonic if he was blushing because of it.

A weak smile characterized the adorable look Sonic already had on his face, "Were you just really worried, or did you really mean that?" Shadow continued to bite at the inside of his mouth, not liking the distance they were having this conversation from, he felt like he was screaming at the green-eyed hedgehog, he smiled as Sonic was still staring straight down.

"...I meant it...and Faker, you really need to learn to look at people when you talk to them, it's really rude not to." A weak smile crossed the lips of the blue hedgehog once again. His cheeks flushed immediately though, and he kept his eyes on the ground. Shadow took a deep breath and let his gaze rest upon the flustered hedgehog. A smirk slowly edged across his face as he saw the familiar embarrassment return.

"Very funny," he mumbled softly as he spoke, he knew Shadow was looking at him and his heart skipped about ten or twenty beats. Maybe it was just one, but right now, that wasn't what the azure hedgehog's mind was primarily focused on. "Shadow..." He started, but he couldn't figure out what words he had been planning to say. He simply sighed and kept his focus on the ground. He had handled it a little better before, and it was so unlike him to be so worked up. He had never been embarrassed...or nervous in his entire life! Why did Shadow do this to him?

"Hm...?" Shadow's voice was a lot gentler than usual, a softness that was very rare for someone like the dark hedgehog, Sonic knew he was questioning him on what he was going to say. He searched his mind furiously for any words he could find, they weren't any. He was confident he had forgotten the entire English language! He heard the darker hedgehog laugh softly, and lifted his eyes to see what exactly he was laughing at, "You know, Faker...you're cute when you blush." Sonic's eyes widened in surprise as he looked up at Shadow after he said this.

"What?" He didn't stammer, he knew what Shadow had said, but it just took his own embarrassment to a whole new level. He bit into his bottom lip hard enough to break the skin and cause a fairly bad blood flow, luckily, that didn't happen, he winced slightly at a sudden burst of pain that had been welling in his leg. "Sometimes you say the weirdest things!" He didn't shout, but his voice wasn't as soft as it had been either. Shadow watched intently as the younger hedgehog's face got redder, he felt his own burn with nervousness.

The black and red hedgehog raised an eyebrow at the blue one, "You do." He smiled as Sonic looked at him, blinking in a confused manner.

'_Cute?'_

Sonic's ears perked up alertly, he finally met the red eyes that probably matched the color of his own cheeks. He smiled slightly, finally Shadow closed the gap between them, he walked towards him, a look of bewilderment caught in his eyes even as he stared at the floor and thought, "Do you think it's weird? That you like me and not Amy?" Shadow questioned him slightly, he worried over it for a moment, but then he just honestly wanted to know the answer to the question. He did think it was somewhat weird, but he guessed you love a particular person, no matter how long you've been around them, or who they are.

"Not really." He smiled as he saw the grin across Sonic's face, "I mean, you know...it's not really...she was a little bit annoying." Shadow rolled his eyes and laughed at the irony in Sonic's comment. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, he agreed, but he wasn't sure whether to do so verbally or not. He stared into Sonic's green irises for a long time, then looked away, out the window again. "Do you feel okay?" Shadow turned back to the blue hedgehog at this comment, he was looking at him fully now, but he was still tented red, or his face was.

Shadow smiled and simply nodded his head, "What did you ask that for? I'm fine." Sonic just shrugged his shoulders and looked up at him.

"You looked like you had something on your mind." Shadow laughed for just a few seconds again, he stared at the blue hedgehog, whom had lowered his head again. He wanted to tell Sonic to look at him, but he didn't. He just stood there staring at him, wishing he would look up to meet his own eyes.

"I do." That did it, Sonic looked up at him and tilted his head to the side slightly. Shadow watched him carefully, noticing the red tint to the bandages still wrapped around his wounds, and the pain that his posture was expressing.

"What?" Shadow looked at him like he had just asked if he was male or female, or something so utterly and completely obvious that it did not have the right to be put into question form. In all reality, it didn't, but Sonic still didn't feel like sounding all conceited and assuming it was about him.

"You, you idiot...what else would I have on my mind?" Sonic smirked and rolled his eyes. He had been right, and he had known this, but he decided not to let Shadow in on the fact that he had known this. He liked the look he was getting, which was slightly skeptical.

"I guess that was pretty obvious."

"Yeah." Sonic took a deep breath and turned his head slightly to the door. He wondered for a split second if Amy was feeling any better, he wondered this because he forced his mind to her. She had earned some respects for all the times she had held on to him for nothing, he knew he had treated her badly. But, he had also saved her life countless times, though, all that to her, probably meant nothing right now. He then looked back to Shadow, a passion or desire of sorts coming over him. He redirected his glance, the feeling bringing an even redder shade to his face. "Sonic, before...you told me you liked me different from everyone else, what were you talking about?" Sonic looked up at him. His heart started racing, he wished desperately that he didn't have to say what he was feeling. It was a different kind of way than how he had wished he hadn't had to tell Amy he _didn't _love her. Before, he wanted to say it, but he didn't want her to know. But, now, he wanted Shadow to know, but he didn't know _how_ to say it.

There were three words he needed to say, that shouldn't have been that hard. He was Sonic the Hedgehog, if Shadow had said them to him, he could say them to Shadow. He just felt like there was a gigantic knot in his throat. He gave the dark hedgehog a weak smile though, he was glad Shadow decided to return it, as he felt a little more at ease then. "You honestly...need me to say that?" The red-eyed hedgehog simply nodded his head, a quick smirk coming across his face.

Sonic sighed, he could have never pictured himself saying those words. That was so out of character for him, so abnormal for him to admit an affection like that, he had always been so laid back. He still was, just not when it came to Shadow. "I can't read minds, Faker...I wish Doctor Gerald had given me that ability, but I didn't get that lucky." Sonic just nodded his head and smiled, Shadow couldn't read minds, and he needed to say this out loud anyway, to prove to himself if he really did.

He clenched his fists, then just squeezed his eyes shut tightly, he had no idea what words were about to come out of his mouth, he didn't know if he would be glad, or regret them. He just let his lips move, and sounds come out accordingly, "I love you, Shadow!" The black hedgehog blinked, staring at him. He saw that Sonic had surprised even himself with how bluntly he had put this, the blue hedgehog didn't regret it though, that was for sure. As a smile slowly came across his face, Shadow laughed.

"This is so...weird!" Sonic tilted his head at Shadow, listening as he spoke, "I never even thought I'd fall in love...I didn't even love Maria...I loved her like a sister, or even a mother...but I never thought I'd fall in love...like..._in love_. Especially with a guy...someone like you. I hated you, Faker!" The bemused hedgehog simply nodded his head. He had known this, he hadn't been utterly fond of Shadow either when they first met. He thought he was a copy, though, Shadow really hadn't been that similar to him, when he looked back at him. They looked alike, he guessed. They didn't even look that similar, just that they were both hedgehogs.

"I thought I'd fall in love..." Sonic's voice was a little softer than Shadow's, but he was smiling now, "But not with someone like you, either...trust me, I didn't like you all that much either when we first met." The red and black hedgehog chuckled slightly at the remark. He shook his head slightly, he stared into those green emeralds.

Finally, Shadow grabbed the flustered hedgehog again, this time he actually wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled his body to his own. It wasn't like before, like he was scared to do it, and Sonic smiled before their lips touched, Shadow could almost feel the beat of Sonic's own heart. He finally pressed his lips to the blue hedgehog's, he felt two arms around his own body as well, a feeling forced its way into his heart, which sped up, he felt Sonic's quivering breaths, and when he pulled his lips back, he saw the blue hedgehog's trembling. An intense desire, one even he had never felt before came over him as he stared at the green-eyed hedgehog. "Are you scared?" His voice was a gentle whisper now, Sonic just whimpered and shook his head. This proved he was lying, but Shadow was honestly scared too. Why? He had no idea, but he was scared in a good way and he liked the feeling.

He watched Sonic's lips slowly stop shivering, as he pressed his own to them again. He finally felt Sonic loosen up a little in his arms, catching the smile as he pulled away a second time. He took another breath after a second and just smiled, "You know, I've actually never done that before..." Shadow laughed, he didn't think it was funny, but he couldn't help but laugh from pure joy from the smile on Sonic's face. "...I liked it." Shadow shook his head, he hadn't done it before either. But he wasn't up for saying so, so he just smirked and pushed the blue hedgehog gently.

"You're so stupid, faker." Sonic sulked and disagreed with the comment, he didn't say anything though. Shadow had waited for him to speak up about it, but he decided he was going to have to, since the green-eyed hedgehog's thoughts seemed to be elsewhere, "You think Amy's gonna take it okay?" Sonic sent him a look.

"She saw us kiss...courtesy of the Ultimate Life Form, so I think she's going to be fine..she might be a little heartbroken for a while."

"I don't blame her." This caused a flush in Sonic's cheeks, the black hedgehog found this adorable and just smiled at him.

"Me...either?" Sonic's tone sounded like someone trying to sound cocky who was really kind of nervous and confused. The result was somewhat cute in Shadow's mind, but it sounded silly in Sonic's.

"I love you, Sonic the Hedgehog." Shadow just grabbed the blue hedgehog and pressed the soft lips to his once again, this action making his own and Sonic's skin crawl with pleasure.

---

Amy paced around waiting on the two of them to finish talking, tears still welled in her eyes. Tails watched the girl walk back and forth, he scratched his head, "Amy...why did all three of you need to be alone?" Amy jerked her thoughts from what they had been on and looked at the kit. He expected an answer but all he got was Amy shrugging her shoulders. He hated it when everyone tried not to tell him something. "Don't give me that, Amy, come on...just tell me." She gritted her teeth and turned to him.

"Sonic likes Shadow, Tails...gah...you're so annoying sometimes." He jerked back at what she said and the tone she said it in. He wanted to give her a gigantic hug when he saw the hurt in her eyes, but he figured she'd just slap him.

"Sonic likes...Shadow? Does Shadow like him?" She glared at him, but nodded. She hated the fact that he repeated it. Why did he have to say it over and over? It was like she hadn't announced it loudly enough for the entire universe to hear her the first time. He just gave her a weak smile, even as she glared. He figured she didn't need anymore anger than she already had built up in her. "...Amy...I'm sorry..." She just turned away furiously and let a few more tears slide down her face.

"It's no one's fault...Sonic can't help it and neither can Shadow. So don't be sorry..." She took a deep breath and just cut herself off before she fell to the ground in tears. She wanted to run back in there and cling to Sonic and refuse to let go, but she knew very well that she couldn't do that. Tails kicked up some dirt and watched the ground, lowering his ears.

He toyed with the thought that Sonic liked Shadow, it was strange, but not unexpected. He didn't know why but when the two had been so freaked out when he got to Amy's house, the conversation he had with Amy, it just seemed like it. He sighed slightly, he felt bad for Amy, but was almost happy for Sonic. Shadow and him seemed to fit together really well. "I am sorry though, Amy, I'm sorry you got hurt." She just nodded her head and didn't say anything.

"Why did I have to be the one..." She stopped herself and kept turned away from Tails, shivering in anger and depression. She bit into her lip and sighed.

Tails just shook his head. "No one wanted you to get hurt, Amy...but you'll be okay, you're so pretty...you'll find a better guy than Sonic!" Amy turned to him and shook her head. He realized he had said something terribly cliche, but what did she expect? He fidgeted quietly with his fingers and watched her gaze turn back to the door of her own home.

She glared vehemently at the white entrance to her home, she smoothed out her red dress and pinched her eyes shut, "...why did I leave?" She suppressed tears, doing nothing more than prolonging her composure for a few extra seconds as tears started to fall down her already tear stained cheeks. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and she turned and gave Tails a weak smile. "I thought he...might...I suspected, but I thought...there's no way...he could love him _for real_, I didn't think it was possible...I was so stupid!"

"Amy, don't cry." Tails whispered softly, as if he didn't want her to hear. Amy truly was a beauty, he wondered how Sonic _could_ reject her. He saw her stop, as her green eyes opened once again.

"I won't, Tails...because, you never know...maybe someone better is already falling in love with me...I can't sit here and cry over spilt milk." Amy grabbed Tails in a small hug, Tails just smiled and looked back at her.

"I know it's hard, Amy...but, it'll be okay." He patted her lightly on the back, she smiled genuinely for the first time in a long while.

---

"So, what was it LIKE?" Rouge and Knuckles glared wrathfully at the rabbit. She had been talking to them for the past hour, or talking at them anyway. They had hardly said three words to the young girl and she just kept right on talking. Knuckles ears were screaming in pain and Rouge was about to knock Cream from here to she didn't even know where. Not to mention, the incessant "Cheese" in the back drop, made each of them cringe.

"CREAM!" They both shouted almost simultaneously. She tilted her head at them and just gave them a smile. If they hadn't been so annoyed, they would have felt bad for the poor girl, but they were ready to pounce on her at any given moment.

"Are you guys mad?" They both gritted their teeth and Knuckles had to take continuing deep breaths to keep from strangling her and throwing her to the bottom of some deep canyon.

"NO, not at _all_." Rouge reassured calmly, ushering the young girl away. "Well, we'll have to talk to you later, Cream...me and Knuckles need some alone time." Cream blinked and stared back at her, she kept pushing her, though.

Knuckles watched in a slightly bemused manner as Rouge forced Cream from the area, waving her off for as long as she could see her. He couldn't figure out how Rouge persuaded Cream to leave, but she managed. He was relieved to see the bat walking back towards him, Cream(and Cheese)-less. "Go Rouge." He grinned and patted her on the back once she was within range.

"That little rabbit can really be nerve-racking." Knuckles nodded in agreement and just shrugged his shoulders. He sat on the stairway that led up to the master emerald, sure enough, they were back on Angel Island. Rouge watched him quietly, wanting to speak up, but simply biting her tongue in hesitation. "Well, Knuckles...I wonder what Eggman is going to do next...you know, I was thinking...I, um, I was really worried about you...when we were there without you...on the ARK." Knuckles turned to her, his purple eyes meeting her green ones. She worried slightly what he was going to say, figuring it would be mean.

"Can you believe that..._Sonic and Shadow_! That's so weird!" Rouge sighed, exasperated. He didn't even _hear_ her. She swore this echidna was going to be the death of her. "Is something wrong?" He did notice that his remark bugged the bat woman. "You're not...jealous of Sonic, are you?"

She put her hand over her eyes and let out another sigh, "No! I don't really care who Shadow likes, Knuckles! He's cute, but that's _all_!" She glared up at him and he seemed pleased with this remark. But, then he thought on something else, seeming to chew on his lower lip.

"Really? I thought you liked him." He finally seemed to take her seriously, but he looked at her like he might ruin everything again with his next sentence, she looked away from him, preparing herself for the mental capacity it was going to take to not slap him off this island. "I'm glad you don't like him, though..." Rouge opened her eyes and stared at him in amazement.

"You are?" She resisted a smile, not wanting to jump to conclusions but it was difficult not to. His eyes lowered to the ground, as she continued to look at his face. He seemed to be pondering something or other, she wondered vaguely if it was her.

"Yeah..." He smiled slightly, and she waited to see if he was going to say anything else. "You're too pretty for him anyway." A slight red came over her cheeks.

She slung her arms around his neck and smiled, "Are you saying _you_ like me, Knuckles?" This time it was Knuckles' turn to blush. He smiled slightly and put his arms around her. The echidna shrugged after a moment and met her eyes again.

"...maybe." Rouge kissed him lightly on the cheek. He opened his mouth to speak, but Rouge closed her eyes in exasperation, and put one of her hands to his lips before he got the chance.

"Don't say anything, you'll ruin it."

---

Espio beat his head repeatedly upon a wall in the ARK, as Charmy and Vector argued back and forth, "See? I told you the escape pods had been sabotaged by that weird little fox girl." The gator just glared at the bee, then clenched his fists.

"SO? A lot of good that does us! We're still stuck up here!" Charmy scowled, listening to Vector yell for a few more moments.

"Why can't you admit I was right? And, you act like everything's my fault! It's kind of your fault Shadow didn't like us enough to bring us back!" He shook his head and buzzed around a bit in the air, "Don't be mad at me, I didn't mess 'em up!" He clinched his fists and flailed his arms about in the air.

"Charmy, you're such a baby!"

"WHAT?"

"Will you two idiots **_SHUT UP_**?"

* * *

n-n; The end? Well, I hope you guys liked it! R&R. The ending was a little sappy, but I kind of liked the end result, hope yall did!


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